


Sky High

by JamesJohnEye



Series: Sky High [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Conversations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-01-16 21:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 28,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1361923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamesJohnEye/pseuds/JamesJohnEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The many roads home-bound, through clouds and conversations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreams and Nightmares

It’s almost midnight when the jet takes off; gliding into a dark sky filled with a thousand stars. There are hardly any lights on in the cabin; most of the team members are asleep. JJ is curled up on the small couch. Even in her sleep she holds her mobile tightly and close to her chest. It pings softly; Will is still awake, waiting for her.

Morgan and Elle sit next to each other, near the rear of the plane. Her head is on his shoulder and soft Jazz music comes from Morgan’s headphone but their eyes are closed.  
Hotchner is sitting by himself, slumped in his chair and with his mouth slightly open. The suit is now wrinkled; he looks undignified, but human, at last.

Reid isn’t sleeping. He hasn’t been for the last days. Instead he’s setting up a chess game.

Gideon can still remember when he first saw Reid. A lanky teenager, sitting cross-legged on a desk, staring up at a blackboard full with mathematical equations, on his own. Bony hands covered in chalk, brown eyes wide open when caught after hours. A nervous stutter, wringing hands, ill-fitting clothes.

He’d been just a teenager. Defenseless against the charm of a profiler.

‘Play with me?’ Reid asks.

‘Of course,’ Gideon answers.

Sometimes it feels like that’s all he’s ever done.

Their second meeting had been different; Reid’s face just one of the hundreds in the large lecture hall. Gideon hadn’t even known he was there until the very end, when one of the lecturers dragged the poor boy in front of the class, offering him up as bait for the BAU.

And Gideon hadn’t said no, though he had many reasons to.

No, he’s too young, too fragile.

No, he has enough burdens to bear.

No, he still has dreams.

But he hadn’t said no. Instead he’d talked to the boy about the Federal Bureau of Investigation, about their research projects into the minds of criminals, about the papers he’d written, the awards he’d received, the science of all that he did, every day. And the boy had loved it.

Still loves it.

Reid carefully sets the board down on the small table between them. He always gives Gideon white. Studies have shown that playing white has a slight advantage, the openings move, the draw of luck. 52 to 56% of the games are won by white. Reid knows that. He tells Gideon that he likes to give him a fighting chance. Gideon knows that he needs something to blame for his loss.

The genius is nothing if not a sore loser.

And he lost. Even before the game started. Years ago, because Gideon didn’t say no and Reid said yes.

‘Do you remember why you joined the BAU?’

Reid frowns as Gideon makes his opening-move.

‘Yes.’

He joined the academy because Gideon had told him stories about science, research, about fighting the good fight, being a hero, saving lives, protecting the innocent, making history.

He joined because he still had dreams.

Gideon looks at his protégé. And thinks about how he has given him nightmares instead.

‘I don’t regret it,’ Reid says, meeting his eye over the chessboard. His mentor gives him a sad smile.

‘I do.’


	2. Let me guide you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know how to dance, right?

 

* * *

 

‘Rossi. You’ve been at weddings, right?’

‘Is this a trick question?’ the Italian asks as he looks up from his notebook. Emily Prentiss is sitting across from him, on the edge of the stool as if she’s ready to bolt. Her black hair is tied in a ponytail but some bangs have escaped. They frame her face, making her seem younger than she really is.

‘No?’ She asks innocently.

‘Then yes. I’ve been to weddings. Why are you asking?’

‘Well,’ she says slowly, wrapping her hands around the cup of long-cold coffee.

‘Out with it,’ Rossi says semi-sternly as he gazes at her over the rim of his glasses.

‘There’s this…’ She says and then, ‘a friend of mine is getting married and… Well. You know how to dance, right?’

‘And you don’t.’

‘No,’ Emily mutters, turning a bright shade of red as she takes a sip from her coffee and grimaces at the taste.

The Italian nods and turns back to his notebook. Emily’s shoulders slump in defeat, but after a couple of seconds, when his sentence is finished, Rossi closes the small book and places it on the table between them. Then he gets up, walks over to where Morgan is seated and plucks the Ipod out of his hands.

‘What the…?’ Morgan starts as he opens his eyes.

Rossi pulls the plug from his headphones out and music floods through the plane. He tosses the device back at Morgan.

‘Harder.’

The volume increases as he saunters back to Emily. He bows slightly and holds out his hand, ‘may I have this dance?’

She laughs as she gets up, but it sounds more grateful than amused.

‘Okay, hand here,’ he places her hand on his shoulder, ‘other here, just a simple side step-touch, yeah like that.’ He puts his hand on the small of her back and grips her other hand gently. ‘See? Easy as breathing, just move with me. We’re not in a club, try not to bounce as you step to the side, oh, feel my rhythm, don’t speed up or you’re going to st-‘

‘Sorry!’ Emily cries out, stepping away hastily, ‘I’m so sorry!’

Rossi laughs and takes her hand again, pulling her close, ‘doesn’t matter, come on. Listen to the music, let’s just sway a little.’

Morgan laughs as Emily clumsily makes side-steps, moving back and forth on one spot like she’s back at her high school prom. She keeps glancing down to make sure that she’s not stepping on Rossi’s feet again, but then the Italian pulls her even closer so she can’t see anymore.

‘Just let go,’ he says, ‘you’re not going to step on my foot again. Just relax.’

‘It’s hard to relax when you’re breathing in my ear,’ Emily snaps.

Rossi laughs, ‘don’t tell your dance partner that. You might not even reach second base then.’ Emily slaps his arm but he pulls her flush against his chest again. ‘Feel my hand?’

‘Yeah, move it lower and lose it.’

Rossi laughs again, ‘I won’t. With this one,’ he shakes their joined hands, ‘I’m going to push, and with the right one, I’m going to slightly pull you. We’re going to make a turn, okay?’

‘Which way?’

‘Just feel it. I’m guiding you.’

‘You’re the worst teacher, ever,’ Emily grumbles, ‘you know? I had this math teacher who once said; you just have to love the numbers and then they’ll love you right back! You’ve got to win their trust, Emily, or they’ll never solve your problems for you! It was horrible.’

‘We just turned.’

‘Oh.’

Emily looks over his shoulder, but instead of seeing Morgan’s grinning face, she sees Hotch, who’s hiding his grin behind yesterday’s paper and Spencer who’s laughing behind his book.

‘Never mind them,’ Rossi says kindly, guiding her through the small plane. They sway to the soft jazz music. ‘Stupid kids. You’re doing great.’

Emily laughs and puts her head on his shoulder, ‘thanks Rossi.’

‘Anytime.’

And while they dance together, the guys stop laughing. They watch silently as all the tension of the case seems to melt from Emily’s and Rossi’s face. They just dance, talking quietly to each other while twirling around on the spot.

 

It becomes a tradition. Every once in a while someone will pull the plug of Morgan’s headphone out and ask another to dance. They’ll sway together to soft jazz music, holding each other close while whispering comforting stories to each other until they feel human again.


	3. Bright and early

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garcia is quiet on the way home and Hotch realizes he said the wrong thing.

* * *

 

 

It’s one of those rare case that Garcia travels with them. On the way to the crime scenes, she’d cooed over the interior of the plane, trying out every seat and opening every cupboard. Now, on the way home, she’s quiet.

JJ is reading a book, her feet tucked beneath Reid’s leg to keep her toes warm. The young doctor is slumped in his chair, curled in an awkward position that can’t be good for his back, vast asleep. He’ll wake up sore and groggy. But he’ll wake up to JJ’s smile, too.

Hotch is awake. He’s reading the reports, mentally preparing his own paperwork so he’ll be able to get it done quickly when they land. He looks up when Garcia takes the seat opposite him.

She looks sad. Her gaze travels to Morgan, who’s headphones are skewed now that he’s slumped against the side of the plane. He’s using his jacket as a pillow, the zipper pressing in his cheek, leaving a strange sleep-mark.

‘Sometimes I think it’s not fair,’ Garcia says softly.

Hotch closes his file to focus his attention on her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I have other teams, you know,’ the technical analyst answers. ‘There are other people who call me for personal records, phone numbers, addresses. They all call me and I always try my best, but… It’s different when you call.’

‘How so?’

She snorts, ‘because you’re my Suit? Because that’s my Chocolate Ardonis. My Italian Stallion, my JJ. It’s my Boy Wonder and it will be my Linguist too. And the others are SSA Harting and Unit Chief Decker and my name is never Penny with them. They never notice when my hair changes color.’

Hotch lifts an eyebrow, ‘your _work_ contributes to our case. The information you provide is essential, not the names you give us. Or your hair color.’

She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again, before saying; ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ll let you work now.’ She moves to where Rossi is sitting, head resting on his hand, eyes nearly closed. He smiles sleepily when he sees her.

 

It’s only when Hotch is putting his bag into the trunk of his car that he realizes what he’s said. And to whom.

 

Garcia opens her door, looking very bewildered and slightly sick, ‘oh no,’ she moans, ‘please, no. That’s the worst record you’ve ever set, Hotch; twenty five minutes! We’ve been home for _twenty-five_ minutes! We deserve a holiday to the Bahamas after that last case, not a pee-break of twenty five minutes!’

‘We don’t have a case. May I come in?’

‘Oh,’ she stares at him for a moment before backing away from the door, ‘uhm, sure.’

It hasn’t changed much since the last time he was here. There’s still clutter everywhere, little figurines decorate every available surface and colorful fairy lights illuminate the room. Her go-suitcase is in the middle of the floor, open, and every item of clothing seems to have exploded outwards. They cover her couch and chairs.

‘Oh shoot,’ she says and hurries over in her high heels. She grabs the clothes and throws them back into the suitcase. ‘Sit! You can sit there! And I was making tea. You don’t like tea. I can make coffee? But I only have hazelnut latte or vanilla or caramel-crunchy-goodness,’ she rattles nervously, ‘and I know you like it black. I don’t do plain. Sorry.’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

They stay silent for a minute, gazing at each other. Hotch with his grey suit and dark hair, the piercing eyes and black briefcase, every inch the former attorney, every inch the Unit Chief. And Penny, with her red hair and green dress, many rings and yellow necklace. Every inch herself.

‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ Garcia blurts, ‘it’s just, I came home and just went blaah’ she motions throwing everything everywhere, ‘and then you came and there isn’t any normal coffee and…’

‘Penelope,’ Hotch says, cutting her off effectively. ‘I meant what I said on the plane. Your work is essential to our cases, just like it is for the cases of Decker and Ferris. While Strauss was away, I took on some of her roles and had to sign every case-report. They all spoke very highly of your contributions. Your work for us is not better because you care so much. Your work is extraordinary because you are. Each and every time, for anyone’

Garcia stares at him, her mouth slightly open.

Hotch nods, his grip on his bag tightening a bit, ‘I don’t agree when you say it isn’t fair. You can’t love the whole world, Garcia, though I find it admirable that you try. And I know I don’t say it often enough, but I am thankful to belong to the group you call friends.’

‘Family,’ Garcia says breathlessly. ‘You belong to the group I call family.’

Hotch gives her a warm smile, nodding slightly. ‘Good night Penelope. I’ll see Monday morning.’

‘Yeah,’ she says, still dazed. ‘Bright and early.’


	4. Wildfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s wildfire in his mind.

 

* * *

 

 

Spencer is leaning against the kitchen counter. His fingers are white from the pressure he puts on them. Every couple of seconds he arches up, retching, but nothing comes up and he just moans before slumping back into his position. The curtain is closed, the team can’t see him, but they all know what’s going on.

They’re halfway home. Halfway home. Spencer keeps repeating it, in various languages, in dialects, in numbers. Almost home.

The fluorescent light in the plane hurts his eyes. There’s wildfire in his mind. A ripping, tearing, burning pain which pulses like a heart-beat out of sync. It’s like someone poked his brain with a white-hot needle. He can point out where the needle is, just behind his left ear, an inch behind his hairline, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

He’s tried everything, but nothing helps. Everything hurts and no herbal soother can make it go away.

The curtain slides to the side. The noise makes Spencer wince.

JJ steps into the kitchen, holding her empty coffee cup. It’s just an excuse to be in the kitchen with him, Spencer knows, she normally never drinks this much coffee, but he can’t appreciate it. The noise of water boiling in the machine, her rummaging in the cupboards to find her blend, everything is amplified until it almost makes his ears bleed.

The pressure of the plane isn’t helping, either. It feels like someone is trying to push a fist into his ear, while his brain is trying to explode. Too much pressure, everything too hot and heavy and terrible.

Almost home, he thinks and he tries to encode the message in a mathematical formula, but the numbers slip away from him as the noise of JJ clearing her throat deafens him.

‘Spence,’ she says softly, almost reaching out but changing her mind mid-movement. ‘Please, there must be something we can do for you.’

‘Yeah, maybe you can _shut the hell up_?’ Spencer snaps and then winces as the sound of his own voice resounds in his head like thunder.

JJ doesn’t even blink. She watches as he almost folds into himself when another wave of nausea strikes him hard. There’s sweat dripping down his arm, soaking his grey shirt. There are stains on his back and the brown hair is sticking to his forehead. He gasps for breath and tightens his hold on the counter.

The young mother resolutely takes one of the small towels and drenches it in cold water.

‘Take off your shirt.’

It takes Spencer a couple of minutes, but then he drops the sweat-soaked shirt on the floor.

JJ starts with his left arm, slowly rubbing circles of cool water into his skin.

Normally, Spencer can’t stand it when people touch him during his migraines. But this is JJ. She’s seen him at his worst already, half dead and high on dilaudid. And even then, she’d washed his hands, face, elbow-crooks tenderly until he didn’t feel as filthy anymore.

‘Henry learned how to ride his bike,’ she says softly while she washes his shoulder. ‘Will walked beside him and then just let go, suddenly. And he rode around our garden like he was born on it. It was fantastic.’

Spencer moans softly and arches his back up like a cat.

‘He has made you a drawing. It’s on our fridge, waiting ‘till you come round. You probably couldn’t tell, but it’s you, except that you’re purple and have red hair. And you’re a stick figure.’

Spencer snorts softly and winces. Water drips down his back, cold drops making him shiver. They soak the band of his pants, but it doesn’t matter. JJ washes his armpit and soaks the towel again to start on his chest. The cold helps. It gives Spencer something to focus on, other than the blinding pain in his head.

The curtain opens again when JJ starts on his torso. Hotchner slips into the kitchen, holding a bottle of non-narcotic painkillers.

‘It’s been two hours,’ he says softly, not even blinking at the sight of JJ washing the young genius’ chest. ‘You can have two more. Do you need them?’

Spencer nods and nearly retches when the movement causes him to experience vertigo.

‘Keep your head still,’ JJ whispers as Hotchner fills a cup with water and hands Spencer two pills. Seconds later he takes the empty cup back and leans against the counter, his hip near Spencer’s trembling hands.

‘Is it getting any better?’ he asks.

JJ ignores him and Spencer can’t answer. He’s afraid he’ll throw up if he opens his mouth.

‘Henry really like that book about stars you gave him,’ she says softly. ‘He’s always dragging it around the house, even though I’m not allowed to read it to him. He says I do the voices wrong. You really need to come over soon. You’re the best at the voices.’

Spencer smiles through his pain.

‘Oh, and Will wanted to ask you if you wanted to go this concert? One of Will’s friend is in a band and they’re playing downtown this weekend. It’s just in a local bar, nothing fancy, but he thought you might like it.’

Spencer shivers.

‘Jazz mostly,’ JJ answers even though Spencer didn’t ask. ‘They’re quite good. By the way, I wanted to ask you, Will and I were thinking about taking a short trip to New Orleans so Will can see his friends and family before the summer holidays. Would you mind watching Henry for a weekend? Friday to Sunday? We don’t want to bring him if it’s just for one day. We’ll be back Sunday afternoon.’

Spencer flexes his shoulders.

‘Thanks,’ JJ whispers as she wipes down his right arm, rubbing cold water of his hand, wrist and shoulder. ‘Feeling better? The cold good?’

He nods carefully, breathing heavily through his nose.

‘Right, all done, let’s get you dry.’

Hotch hands her a dry towel and she starts the process all over again, but when she’s dried his back, he takes the towel from her to do the rest himself. His movements are sluggish, he’s still leaning against the counter with one hand.

‘Dizzy,’ he murmurs when he’s done.

‘I know,’ JJ says as she quickly steps away from him. ‘Hotc-‘

Hotch catches him as he falls.


	5. Custody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotch struggles with his role during the hostage situation and Rossi files for custody.

 

* * *

 

 

Flying still causes him to experience extreme discomfort. During take-off Hotch keeps his left hand pressed against his ear. He tries to make it look like he’s lounging, casually propping his head up, but the grimace of pain ruins the effect. After a couple of minutes he gives up pretending and lets his head fall back against his seat, groaning softly.

A glass of water and two painkillers appear before him on the table the second the seatbelt-signs are turned off. Rossi slips into the seat opposite him, carrying his trusted notebook. He nods at the pills, ‘take them before your stubbornness kills you.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ Hotch answers, but he does take the pills, gulping them down gratefully.

Rossi doesn’t respond, but the raised eyebrow says enough while he flips his notebook open and starts writing.

After a couple of minutes, Hotch says ‘thank you.’

The Italian looks up, puzzled.

Hotch is staring out of the small window, regarding his country. Lakes, rivers, countryside slides by, miles and miles of tranquillity. ‘For getting them out,’ he says, looking up and past Rossi. At the front of the plane, Emily and Reid sit together. Emily’s face is badly bruised, dried blood still on her cheek, but she has her hands on Reid’s book, teasing a smile from the doctor. They talk quietly, body language shifting from unsure-hostile to engaged-friendly.

‘We did it together,’ Rossi says. ‘All of us.’

Hotch shakes his head but doesn’t answer, letting his gaze wander back to the magnificent view.

‘What’s this about?’

The notebook is closed, a sure sign that the older profiler is not going to let this go.

Hotch sighs before meeting Rossi’s eye, ‘I’m their unit chief,’ he says. ‘I’m the one they’re supposed to look to in times of need. I’m the one who takes charge, who leads the assault and what did I do? I stood back and watched. When that bomb went off, I thought I’d lost them. You. All of you. I…’ he falters, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment, ‘they are my responsibility. I should have been there.’

‘Aaron, your ears are shot. There was no way you could have led that raid.’

‘Is that what I should have told Reid’s mother? That my ears hurt a bit? So sorry Mrs Prentiss but I wasn’t feeling well so I send your daughter to slaughter instead?’

‘You would have been a liability,’ Rossi says harshly, ‘and you did what was necessary. We didn’t fuck this up, Aaron. The attorney general did. We did good.’

‘Good?’ Hotch repeats with a humorless laugh. He leans his head back again, grimacing in pain as the plane drops to a different altitude. ‘I did nothing.’

‘You think we need you to hold our hands out in the field? Aaron, you’re not the one we cower behind during a raid, and we don’t need you to put words in our mouth during negotiations. That’s not what you do for us. You’re the unit chief, Aaron. You hold us together. You assign us jobs, you play to our strengths. That’s why JJ handles the press and Morgan kicks down doors, hell that’s why sometimes all I do is talk. It’s what we’re best at. And assigning those roles to us? That’s what keeps us alive. That’s what you do best, Aaron. Keeping us alive.’

‘By shouting from the sidelines.’

‘This is your ego, nothing more,’ Rossi says with finality. He turns back to his notebook, saying ‘we got them out, as a team.’

‘Never thought you’d say such an ugly word,’ Hotch says, shrugging out of his jacket and balling it up to serve as a pillow. He closes his eyes.

They’re silent again. Hotch pretends to sleep and Rossi is staring at his notebook, his pen between limp fingers.

‘You know what, Aaron?’ the Italian suddenly asks, causing the dark eyes of his unit chief to snap open again. ‘’You were right. I had nothing to prove, coming back to the BAU. I could have gone into retirement, enjoyed my fucking book tour. But I did come back and I’m here to stay, okay? That ugly word? _Team_? It’s starting to have a pretty nice ring to it. I know I messed up in the beginning. These kids are half my age, they run twice as fast, got double my IQ and four times my looks, what was I supposed to do?’

Hotch smirks and shakes his head at the same time.

Rossi nods, opening his notebook, ‘but let me tell you this,’ he says warmly, ‘that little bunch of misfits you’ve got there?’ He nods to Reid and Emily who are discussing a book now, to Morgan who is sleeping on the sofa, to JJ who drapes a blanket over him. ‘They are hard to leave behind. They are _ours_ now, Aaron.’

‘Are you filing for custody, Dave?’

The older man laughs, ‘yeah,’ he says, putting pen to paper again. ‘But you can have them on the weekends.’


	6. Story telling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one in which Hotch fires everyone.

* * *

 

 

Blake is sitting on her own, watching the rest of her team intently.

They are sitting across the aisle, huddled together around the small table. Reid is dealing them seven cards, making them appear, disappear before their very eyes which makes JJ laugh. His fingers fly over the cards, throwing them effortlessly on neat piles while Morgan accused him of cheating before the game has even begun, a new record. David is telling a story which results in Reid choking on his drink and Morgan roaring with laughter.

‘I’m telling you,’ JJ cries out moment later, another story, another round of joyous banter. She has a glass of water in her hand and is pointing at Morgan. They could be sitting in a bar instead of the plane. ‘Haley called you an alley cat!’

‘What?’ Morgan replies, sounding truly hurt and shocked, ‘when?’

‘You know,’ JJ grins like a Cheshire cat, ‘when you got your _groove thang_ going? We were at the bar, remember?’

‘You’ve got to be more specific,’ the dark-skinned agent says which makes Rossi laugh.

‘No, no!’ JJ objects, waving her hand wildly, ‘we were all at the bar, us and Reid, and Penny. Emily! Emily was there too! And Hotch! Hotch was there with Haley!’

‘Pretty boy at a bar?’ Morgan asks skeptically, one eyebrow raised in amusement.

Reid takes a card and expertly flicks it straight into his forehead.

‘Ow! I remember, I remember!’ Morgan laughs, ducking another card and throwing his hands up in surrender. ‘That was a great night. Broke happy man, oh yeah.’

‘You remember her phone number too?’ Rossi asks with a knowing grin as he checks his cards and then gives up by throwing them back onto the table.

‘ _Their_ phone numbers,’ Morgan corrects haughtily.

‘They wrote them on you with lipstick, how could you not remember?’ Reid murmurs, his nose wrinkling.

‘We aren’t all blessed with an photographic memory and an allergy for alcohol.’

‘It’s _eidetic_ ,’ Reid hisses for a millionth time, making JJ crack up behind her hand, ‘and I’m not _allergic_ , I just don’t-‘

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Rossi says, waving his hand at Reid’s general direction, ‘yabbedy, yabberdy, IQ of Einstein, fashion sense of Boy George, we got it, kiddo. We’re skipping over important parts here; _Aaron_ was at a bar?’

‘Dancing too,’ JJ adds with a solemn nod just as Reid leans over to her and whispers ‘ _Boy George_?’, making her laugh all over again.

‘He got his groove thang going then, too,’ Morgan says, approval clear as day on his face. ‘Only one phone number though, and his own home-line too.’

Dave grins, sipping his red wine he claims he can’t fly home without. He’s become a better flyer over the years, getting used to the private plane, though it helps that Reid distracts him with his attempts at cheating while playing cards.

‘Great night, we had so much fun,’ JJ says, leaning back and smiling happily, ‘I trashed those boys at darts.’

‘Yeah,’ Morgan joins in, eagerly, ‘Gideon wasn’t there, tho, was he?’

‘He was at the Smithsonian,’ Reid chimes in while peeking at JJ’s cards.

‘Missed a great time,’ Morgan nods and then he turns to Rossi, ‘but you know what happened right? The BAU _smells_ that you’re having a good time. BAM! Kicks you right back into that damned conference room. What was it?’ He asks JJ, who’s not smiling anymore. ‘We had a case right? Was that the one in… in..?’

JJ pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, fixing Morgan with a pointed look before she says; ‘the one in Georgia.’

And then, just like that, no-one is laughing anymore. They play their game. Reid wins. No-one accuses him of cheating.

 

Hotch takes a seat opposite Blake and waits for her to say something. She’s still watching the little group, huddled together, quiet  now. Rossi deals them another game, Reid counts the cards silently and no-one notices. Not even Reid himself.

‘They were having fun,’ Blake says suddenly, turning to her unit-chief. ‘It’s amazing how much power a single word can have.’

‘What was the word?’ Hotch asks as he cracks open a cold coke. He just returned from the bathroom, oblivious to the sudden change of mood.

‘Georgia.’

The dark eyes glance focus on Reid instantly, checking, making sure he’s there, safe, before settling on his newest team member again. ‘I see,’ he says slowly, clicking the tab of his coke back and forth until it comes off. ‘That’s not my story to tell.’

Blake cocks her head to the side, ‘what is your story, then?’

Hotch focuses on the drink, not saying anything.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says after a moment, because she knows it’s an awful story. And she’s new, too new, to know such ugly things about her new-found family. ‘It’s just… there’s so much I don’t know about all of you. I know it just needs time, we all need time to get to know each other, but it makes me feel like an outsider. Like I don’t belong.’

‘We don’t keep it from you intentionally,’ Hotch says immediately, glancing up to meet her eye. ‘You’re right. It takes time.’ After a moment of hesitation, he takes his wallet from the inside pocket of his blazer. He opens It, taking out three pictures. ‘It struck me when you asked who the Reaper was.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Blake says, shaking her head, ‘I should have realized, I just-‘

‘No-one ever told you, there was no way to know,’ he looks at the pictures. And then puts them on the table, in front of Blake. ‘This is Haley. We got married right after high school.’ He smiles a little, ‘we were very happy.’

She takes the picture, gazing at the young woman who’s beaming at the person behind the camera, presumably Aaron. Her blonde hair is framing her face, pushed back slightly by a pair of sunglasses which are resting on the top of her head.

‘She was beautiful.’

‘She was,’ Hotch says softly, ‘we got divorced shortly before her murder. The BAU-‘ he shrugs, ‘it’s not easy.’

‘I know.’

‘George Foyet…’ Hotch falters a bit, taking a sip from his drink, not meeting her eye. At the small table, across the plane, every single member of the team shifts a bit in their seats. Morgan turns around, angling his body towards Blake, subconsciously getting ready to jump up and defend his unit-chief. David is lounging back, but his eyes are sharp, flashing dangerously. JJ has sneaked her hand across her seat, reaching for Reid’s and linking their pinkies together.

But Hotch tells the story. About the home invasion. The phone call, the deal, the murder, his promise, Jack hiding in the trunk.

‘This is him, he’s almost eight now.’

‘Ah, he’s so cute,’ Blake comments while taking the picture. Jack is hanging onto Haley’s neck, laughing and hugging her close, froze in mid-happiness. ‘He looks just like you.’

‘That’s what I say!’ JJ shouts, ‘that’s what I _always_ say! See?’ she asks Reid, Rossi and Morgan, ‘ _see_?’

‘Technically, we heard,’ Rossi replies dryly, winking at Hotch who seems a bit startled to find that his entire team was listening in.

‘You should see the picture that’s on his desk,’ JJ says to Blake, ‘ _identical_.’

Blake hides her grin behind her hand, ‘who’s that?’ she asks, gesturing to the last picture.

‘It’s Beth. My…’ Hotch glances at the rest of the team, coloring a bit, ‘my girlfriend. She lives in New York.’

‘You know what, Aaron?  Rossi says as he picks his cards back up again, ‘I’m happy that that _training_ worked out for you.’

‘We’re landing in approximately one hour and twenty-four minutes,’ Reid says after he glances outside, ‘and a long weekend is coming up. Maybe you should call her for a warming-up?’

‘Oh, they don’t need no warming-up, pretty boy,’ Morgan leers.

‘You really should do a warm-up,’ Reid says to Hotch, ignoring his best friend, ‘the triathlon was 234 days ago, I wouldn’t want you to pull a muscle.’ He eyes Hotch for a moment, feigning concern but he cracks up when he catches Rossi’s eye.

‘You’re all fired,’ Hotch informs them as he takes the pictures back.

‘Ah, you’re no fun,’ JJ complains, ‘so, Spence, how’s Lila?’

The doctor turns a dark shade of red instantly, ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he replies, tilting his chin a bit higher and gathering the cards for another round.

‘Yeah,’ Morgan joins in eagerly, leaning over, grabbing a Queen of hearts and flipping it over, kissing it, ‘is this your card?’

 

It’s only when they get off the small plane, when Hotch gestures to Blake to exit before him, that she puts a hand on his shoulder.

‘Thank you,’ she says.

And he doesn’t say _you’re welcome_ , because their histories are smeared with blood and loss and anger, and they’re not easy to tell. But he does nod, his usually stern face relaxing into a softer version, one he keeps hidden for private moments and he reaches out to take her heavy go-bag from her.

'Let's go home,' he says instead. 


	7. Hear no evil...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's something Hotch needs to know, but he refuses to hear it.

* * *

 

 

For the first time, Hotch isn’t the first of his team to arrive at the plane. When he ducks into the cabin, he finds JJ already sitting at the back. He stores his go-bag in the special compartment and walks over to his team-member. She’s staring out over the runway, face painted gold by the early morning sunlight. There are tears rolling down her cheeks, sparkling like tiny diamonds. Her eyes are red-rimmed, making her seem tired and angry.

She looks up when he sits down. For a moment, he thinks she’s smiling at him, that there’s nothing wrong, but after a second he catches how hopeless she seems. How desperate.

‘There’s something I _have_ to tell you,’ she whispers, ‘but I don’t _want_ to.’

‘If I need to know,’ he replies sternly, sitting up straight, ‘you have to inform me.’

‘So you can inform Strauss?’ she asks, shaking her head and staring out of the window again. ‘It isn’t fair. He just needs time. I know he can beat this, he even made an appointment to go to one of these meetings. He’s getting better every day. _Stronger_ , every day.’

Hotch frowns, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

JJ glares at him, ‘of course you know what I’m talking about. Don’t tell me you can’t see it. He’s getting help, Hotch. You can’t let him go now, this team is all he has. Don’t take that from him. He’ll beat this, I know he will.’

‘This conversation is over.’

JJ gapes at him, horrified and shocked, ‘what?’ she asks after a second. ‘Don’t we mean anything to you?’ she sounds hurt. ‘I thought we were more to you than rules and regulations. I know that you have to inform Strauss if one of your agent is addicted to-‘

‘This conversation is over,’ Hotch snaps, cutting her off. He stands and glares at her, ‘don’t bring it up again.’

 

* * *

 

Two months later and Gideon takes the seat opposite Hotch. It’s late, the rest of the team is dozing off but Hotch is still bowed over his paperwork. The older profiler plays with his glasses, folding them up, folding them out.

‘We need to talk,’ he says eventually.

Hotch looks up, ‘about what?’

Gideon smiles sadly, ‘Reid.’

Hotch gets up immediately, patting Gideon on the shoulder, ‘get some sleep.’

 

* * *

 

Five months later, Garcia calls him on his cell phone while he’s making coffee in the small aircraft. He ducks into the bathroom to answer it. The team lifts an eyebrow but Moran makes a quip about Hailey and everyone turns back to what they were doing.

‘Strange things are happening in this electronic world of mine, boss-man,’ Garcia chirps, ‘okay, listen up; I was looking through our team roster for the next three months – we’re planning a trip! Me and kevin, we’re going to Paris, maybe, I mean, if we can get off together so that why I was-‘

‘Snooping in the team roster that is on my personal computer.’

‘Err,’ Garcia answers.

‘Go on,’ Hotch says, keeping the small smile from his voice.

‘Right! So I was… _checking_ who else had a holiday planned, and something strange caught my eye. Reid has had every Thursday night off  for _eleven_ months now. Okay, that’s weird, right? But you know what else is off? You didn’t plan it.’

‘I didn’t,’ Hotch concurs softly, deep in thought, ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘No that’s just it!’ Garcia says, ‘it’s _hidden_! I mean; it doesn’t appear on the roster, anywhere, but get this; I tried to enter my holiday, you know, just putting it there…’

‘Before I gave permission’

‘-before you gave permission, yes, but I tried, and it is denied because two of our team would be away at the same time! Computer magic; Reid is set on holiday every Thursday afternoon and night and can only be brought in by emergency recall; that’s what it says right here; _emergency recall only_!’

‘I didn’t enter that.'

‘ _I know_!’ Garcia cries out, ‘this is where it gets super weird; I know who did and it’s the-‘

‘Thank you Garcia,’ Hotch says, cutting her off. ‘I will look into it when I get back.’

He never does.

 

* * *

 

Reid slides into the seat opposite Hotch three months later. It looks like he’s glowing, a perfect picture of health. The blonde hair is no longer a tangled mess of curls, but cut short and gelled into place. His eyes are sharp once more, but no longer glaring at everyone and everything. He smiles, broadly and often, allowing people to touch him again, a quick hug from JJ, Morgan’s hand on his shoulder. He talks more too, about movies he’s seen, books he’s read, not just information about the present case.

‘You look well,’ Hotch says.

‘I am,’ Spencer agrees, ‘Garcia took me shopping.’

‘I thought I’d spotted some color on you lately.’

‘Didn’t think you kept such a close eye on my wardrobe.’

‘Not your wardrobe, no,’ Hotch agrees.

Spencer smiles and takes a coin from his pocket. He lets it dance over his knuckles. It disappears from the palm, only to appear with a snap of his fingers. He catches it, spins it, letting it travel from hand to hand, dazzling Hotch with magic.

And suddenly it falls.

Reid leans back, smiling at Hotch, making no effort to retrieve it. The unit chief glances at his youngest member before bending down and picking the coin up.

‘Thank you,’ Reid says, ‘it’s very important to me. I don’t want to lose it.’

When Hotch turns it over, he sees that it’s not a regular coin. On the back it says ‘one year’. He rubs his thumb over it, feeling the texture, ingraining it in his mind before he passes the coin back to Reid. They’re silent for a couple of moment, until Reid makes it disappear into his pocket again.

‘If you lose it, you lose this job,’ Hotch says, eyes hard. ‘I mean it, Reid. If you ever lose it, I’m kicking you out of the FBI for good.’

‘I know,’ the genius says, ‘no second chances.’

‘No second chances,’ Hotch agrees.

 

And from that moment on, coins start to appear on Hotch’s desk, regular as clock work.

One year.

! ½ year.

Two years

On and on and on.

Hotch doesn’t ever take them, just leaves them on his desk until Reid comes in to hand his paperwork over. When he leaves, the coins are gone too. A sleight of hand, a magicians secret.

Their secret, now.

No-one else has to know. And no-one can ever mention it to Hotch.

Hear no evil, report no evil to Strauss.


	8. I might leave a note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'I hated Gideon for it. For running. And now it's all I think about.'

 

* * *

 

 

‘How many conversations have you had?’ Morgan asks quietly. There’s a picture in his hands, a young girl holding her high-school diploma and looking so proud. She has brown hair and rosy cheeks, eyes bright with excitement. He puts it on the table, face down. Then he looks up to meet Rossi’s eyes, ‘how many times have you knocked on that door?’

‘Too often.’

Morgan nods, leaning back and diverting his gaze. His jaw is working, his hands shake, ‘right,’ he says.

The older man leans forward, ‘hey,’ his hand rests on the photograph, ‘you can talk to me.’

Morgan just looks at him for a moment. They’re friends, of course they are, but they never really talk. Not like that. Rossi is the friend who swings by when he’s renovating property in his neighbourhood. He brings booze and they chat about supporting walls and isolation. They don’t talk about this. Never about this.

‘What, you think I’m going to laugh or something?’ Rossi asks, frowning. He looks hurt. ‘I’ve been there, Derek.’

‘Been where?’ Morgan challenges, chin high and defiant. He’s always the one who’ll strike first. Hit them before they hit him.

‘Right there, wondering how long before that next door. How many more times are you going to have to say; ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’ How many more times before you’re not sorry at all. How long it will be before you don’t feel anything anymore.’

Morgan grinds his teeth and looks back out over the clouds. It was early in the morning when they took off, but now it’s already midday. There are small breaks between the clouds, flashes of sprawling fields, small towns. Sometimes he wishes he was down there, away from the cities, away from people. He thinks about running. Like Gideon did.

Rossi sighs and leans back in his chair, opening his notebook again.

‘I hated him for it,’ Morgan says suddenly, stealing himself. ‘Gideon,’ he clarifies when Rossi looks up again, surprised and nonplussed. ‘He ran away, left us dangling. He just left.’

‘He left you.’

‘All of us. Hotch had just been suspended, you weren’t back yet… it was… we managed.’

‘I’m sure you did,’ Rossi says carefully, unsure why Morgan’s face is hardening once more. He thrums his fingers on his leg, a steady rhythm, a nervous disposition.

‘That room just kept getting smaller, you know? Gideon gone without a word. Hotch suspended. I mean, We got Strauss to join us in the field and no offense, Rossi but… You don’t want her hanging around a crime scene.’

Rossi smiles, ‘she liked seeing the team in action.’

‘It’s always better to be a spectator.’ Morgan fiddles with his headphones, twisting the cord between his fingers to avoid looking at the older man. ‘I hated him for it. _Hated_ him. And now it’s all I think about,’ he says after another short pause. He meets Rossi’s gaze reluctantly, scared of judgement, scared of the harsh words Rossi is famous for. ‘Running. Just leaving this all behind. No more phone calls in the night, no more round table meetings, no more dead kids in shallow graves. I want it to stop.’

Rossi nods thoughtfully.

‘And I’m… I want that,’ Morgan whispers, tilting his head back and gazing at the clouds, ‘I want to leave without saying anything, I want to run and never come back. I might leave a note. One that doesn’t explain shit.’

‘I understand.’

‘Do you?’

‘I left, once. And every time I have to knock on that door, I think about leaving again.’

‘Why don’t you?’

‘Bills,’ Rossi says and Morgan snorts, shaking his head. ‘Having a mansion isn’t easy.’ The other agent laughs now, the skin around his bright eyes crinkling, one knee pulled up and his body turning away from the Italian, a genuine laugh which catches him off-guard as well. ‘But seriously? There’s no shame in wanting to run. Or in running.’

‘No?’ Morgan challenges, chin tilting up again.

‘No. There’s shame in never coming back. And I don’t mean to that bullpen. You can walk out, today, leave this job forever and it wouldn’t mean a damn thing to me,’ Rossi shrugs. ‘But _we_ are not the job.  We’re your friends. And you can’t leave _us_.’

And Morgan falls silent again, imagining himself walking out of that bullpen, leaving his desk behind, removing his name from the door. He can imagine himself walking out of that building, never coming back. But he can’t imagine himself missing Garcia’s birthday, or not meeting Reid for coffee on Sunday mornings. He can’t imagine never hoisting Jack to his shoulders again to cheer Aaron on at the tracks. Can’t imagine never letting JJ kick his ass again, or not needling Will about how he’s supporting the wrong football team.

And now that he thinks about it, he can’t imagine renovating a house and not have Rossi come over to talk about the foundation or which color he should paint the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s three weeks later when Morgan is sitting behind his desk, trying to write a consult. It’s a case in rural Virginia, some small town which is going into a frenzy after three bodies were found out in one of the fields. Signs of torture. Organs missing. He flips through the photographs listlessly, thinking that the photographer could use a training-course to brush up his skills. He can’t even see which organ is missing. Heart, maybe. Probably the heart. Doesn’t really matter anyway.

He thinks about what to say to that sheriff who’s never dealt with anything other than petty crime and one fatal car accident by a drunk driver. _Got any people in that town of yours that you might think fit a cannibalistic profile? What about that cousin of yours? He used to wet his bed, didn’t he? Murder triage, man, murder triage._

That’s when he closes the file, turns off his computer and grabs his bag.

That’s when he leaves.

But unlike Gideon, he leaves a message for Hotch and Rossi. He transfers his files to Reid, puts two consults on hold for JJ to take over and leaves for Chicago.

He returns, two weeks later, refreshed and ready for his next case.

When they walk over the runway towards their plane, Morgan grabs Rossi’s arm to hold him back a little.

‘We’re going to catch this bastard, before anyone else gets hurt,’ he says fiercely, ‘because I’m not ringing that doorbell, not this time.’

And the Italian pats his cheek, ‘that’s the spirit.’


	9. Miss Prentiss.

 

* * *

 

 

‘You didn’t have to drive me all the way up here,’ Emily says as she pushes a dark strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Or walk me to my door.’

‘It’s fine.’

They are standing on the airstrip near Quantico, where the Interpol plane is getting ready for departure. Final checks are made by two pilots while assistants wait for Emily at the top of the stairs. Their arms are full of files and maps, reminding her of JJ and her overflowing office. There’s always another case, another crises.

She digs her hands a little deeper into her coat pockets. It’s a chilly morning. The colourful scarf, knitted by Garcia, provides some warmth and comfort but the wind still tugs her hair and stings her cheeks.

‘Have a safe flight.’

‘Can we not do this?’ she asks.

Hotch seems stunned for a moment. Well, it’s just a micro-expression, really, because Hotch does nothing better than hiding his emotions from the general public. Or his friends. But to Emily, the micro-expression is as clear as any frown or gasps may have been. She knows him well. And secretly she’s glad that she can still surprise him, after all these years.

‘Can we not do the whole cloak and dagger thing here?’

‘I don’t understand.’

Emily laughs, rolling her eyes a bit, ‘okay, look. You picked me up, you drove me here, you walked me to my plane and you say; have a safe flight.’

‘Were you expecting a dramatic goodbye?’

‘No. I was expecting you to bring up that what you want to talk about before I had to pry it from you.’

Hotch’s muscles in his jaw clench for a moment. He looks away.

‘If you changed your mind,’ she holds up her hands in surrender, ‘fine. Good bye Hotch. It was really good to see you again, you know, besides the kidnapping and blood and death and all that.’

The wind howls around her as she turns and walks away. She’ll be glad to be inside the aircraft where there’s hot coffee and heating but she knows she’ll always carry a part of that cold with her, wherever she goes. And she’ll miss it, as soon as she’s back in London where she’ll always be the foreigner.

‘Emily!’

A smug smile tugs at her lips when she turns. Hotch walks towards her, briskly, glancing around as if he’s worried someone might see him.

‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ she says when he’s close enough for a private conversation. The assistants on the top of the stairs roll their eyes, glance at their watches, but keep their mouths shut.

‘It’s just –‘ and Emily can see it happening, how he falters, changes his mind. This is a personal matter, she knows instantly. Something private. ‘Never mind,’ he finishes.

‘Hmm,’ she digs her nose into the scarf to keep warm, ‘I miss you guys.’

‘I thought you liked working for Interpol.’

‘I do! It’s just… nobody asks how your weekend was, you know? And if they do, they’re just being polite. It was different with you all.’

He nods, but looks torn.

‘Aaron.’

He closes his eyes for a moment, then looks at her again, ‘in the bar. Akro, Ohio, you went in without your vest and you told us to have your back.’

‘I did,’ Emily says slowly, not getting where he wants to go with this.

‘The unsub turned on you and you had to deal with the situation yourself. You shot him.’

‘Yes, but..’

‘You said; you guys better have my back. And I said that we did. I promised you’d be safe.’

‘I was,’ Emily frowns, ‘what is this about?’

Aaron, always Aaron in such situations; when his eyes shimmer with unshed tears, when he looks so defeated that not even Haley would have been able to make him smile. ‘It’s… I think it’s time for me to step down.’

That makes Emily splutter, ‘what? You can’t do that! What are they going to do without you?’

‘Their job,’ Aaron bites back, more hostile than he means to be, ‘Morgan will step up, or they’ll promote from another team.’

‘And you based that decision on, what? A five year old case that ended with us catching the unsub?’

‘No. I base it on JJ being tortured. On you hiding in Paris, on Elle getting shot in her own house after I send her home! On Reid playing Russian roulette in a goddamn shed!’

‘Oh, and that’s all your fault?’

‘I’m supposed to have your backs! This is all on _me_!’

‘You said you were a team player,’ she fires back, ‘when Reid was in that shed, you said you’d never put yourself above the team. Why are you doing so now?’

‘Because one of my team members almost got executed today.’

Emily closes her eyes for a moment and shakes her head, ‘no. If you need a reason, make it Jack.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘If you want to leave, tell them it’s because you want to spend more time with Jack, not because you think you’re letting any of us down. Don’t make this _our_ fault.’

‘I don’t think I-‘

‘Then what are you trying to tell me, huh? That you’re not having our backs? Let me tell you this; when I ran from the BAU, I got a voice message from Garcia and she told me that you were coming. And I listened to that message every night, to remind myself that you were on your way. That you were coming for me.’

‘And we were.’

‘No, _you_ , Aaron! _You_ were on your way. Let’s be honest here, if you’re being held by some psycho with a gun in a place where no-one will ever find you, the only thought you have is this; _he is coming for you_. That’s how you survive, Aaron! Because Reid will crack some code or see some pattern, and Morgan will throw some punches and some chairs and Garcia will freeze credit cards until she can’t see straight and Rossi and JJ charm their way into any home, but you… You get stopped by _the state_ itself and you still find a way. That’s what we count on when we’re in the dark; that you find a way. And that you never stop looking.’

Aaron opens his mouth, and then closes it. For a moment, he just stands there, looking lost, but then he swoops forward, engulfing her in hug.

And she laughs, wrapping her arms around his neck, holding him tightly. Her hand strokes the short black hair reassuringly, ‘I know it’s hard, but you’re not alone, Aaron. We’ve got your back, like you have ours. Always.’

‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispers, despite himself.

She laughs, bright and cheerful, ‘I missed you too, but next time? Let it be a friendly catch-up, instead of an emergency recall, okay?’

He nods, burying his face into her scarf, ‘thank you. For everything.’

‘And you.’

They untangle seconds later and she straightens his tie, ‘see you around, agent Hotchner.’

‘Goodbye, miss Prentiss.’

 

 

He watches the plane take off. And when he walks back to his car, he finds himself wondering whether anyone at Interpol knows that she’s not really dating a guy named Sergio.

It makes him smile all the way back to the BAU, where his team is waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone has a prompt or request, I'd be more than happy to have a go at it! (Having a bit of an idea-crisis with this at the moment)  
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> \- James.


	10. Fireflies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ calls Will via Skype.

* * *

 

 

JJ’s eyes are empty when she sits down on the small couch. Her hands tremble and silent tears stream down her ashen cheeks as Reid drapes a blanket over her shoulders. He kneels down before her, removing her shoes in an attempt to make her more comfortable.

Morgan hands her a steaming cup of tea. He watches how she curls her fingers around the mug, trying to soak up some of the warmth but it doesn’t seem to help.

Hotch sits opposite her while Rossi keeps pacing.

Nobody knows what to say. They’ve been friends for so long, but what do you say when you watch a child get murdered right in front of you? How can you ever get warm after feeling his ice-cold skin? How can you make a mother smile after seeing and feeling all that?

One by one they retreat, giving her the space she thinks she needs.

After an hour of silence she gets up and opens the laptop. She goes against protocol, using the laptop for personal needs and opens Skype.

Will is still up.

He looks sleepy, leaning his cheek on the palm of his hand, eyes half-closed as he smiles. The brown hair is mussed, sticking up on one side, telling her he’s slept on the couch; probably fell asleep during one of the games.

‘Hey beautiful,’ he murmurs.

‘Hey.’

‘That bad, huh?’ he asks, reaching out to the screen and tracing the line of her face.

She nods, pressing her lips together.

‘I wish you were here,’ he whispers. ‘I’d kiss those tears away and take your hand. We’d dance all night, in the back garden, surrounded by fireflies. It’d be cold, but I would keep you warm.’

She cries, tugging the blanket closer.

‘We’d drink expensive scotch out of champagne flutes, just because we could. I’d blow bubbles you would pop and we’d climb a ladder to the moon, together.’

That makes her smile a little, through her tears.

‘I’d spin you until all we could see were stars,’ he murmurs, his fingers on her cheek, his head resting on his arm.

She shift in her seat so she can lay her head on the arm rest, matching his angle. Her fingers reach out too, touching the stubble on his cheek. ‘I love you,’ she whispers.

‘I love you too. Close your eyes, I’ll tell you a story.’

And she closes her eyes, listening to that southern twang wrapping around a story of stars and bubbles, laughter and dances. She can feel his hand on the small of her back, leading her through the dark, spinning her until she sees nothing but his brown eyes. She tastes expensive scotch mingled with cheap beer which, he tells her, is a cultural thing. When he laughs, she doesn't feel the cold anymore. His thumb strokes her cheek, brushing away tears that have dried over time. He smells like fireworks on the 4th of July and his words are sweet as honey on a winter day, and the whispered stories sound like rumbling thunder, miles away from home.   

She falls asleep with her fingertips touching his cheek, which feels warm in her dreams.


	11. Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan and Hotch tell truths.

 

* * *

 

 

Morgan has been quiet all week.

Hotch first noticed when they were still at Quantico. Their Monday had been slow; completing paperwork for past cases, holding consults via phone and video conferencing, building up reports for their archives. And while Morgan is a steady worker, he usually takes a break every hour. A walk to the kitchen to get some fresh coffee, a bathroom break, a few minutes to tease Reid about his new haircut or latest date. But the door had remained closed for most of the day.

Reid had sauntered up at two, leaning into Morgan’s office to invite him to lunch. He’d declined.

And now Morgan’s sitting at the back of the plane, his headphones in his hands. He studies them, never making a move to turn the music on. The look in his eyes is troubled, distant.

Hotch makes his way to the back, sitting down gingerly.

The dark eyes regard him for a moment before Morgan sighs, ‘what’s up?’

‘Why don’t you tell me?’

Morgan nods and looks out of the window. It’s twilight. ‘What would you do,’ he asks, ‘if you’d see your old man now?’

Hotch frowns.

Morgan shifts in his seat, ‘what would you do if you saw him in the supermarket? In your street? At your favorite coffee shop?’

‘He wouldn’t recognize me.’

‘What if he did? What if he was waiting for you?’

Hotch thinks about that for a moment, ‘laugh in his face.’

Morgan looks surprised for a second.

‘My dad was a bastard,’ Hotch says softly, putting his elbows on the table and leaning towards his subordinate. ‘Someone who loved to build character with his fists. He used to tell me that I was too stupid to get anywhere in life without his help. But I left. And now I have an amazing family and a good job. And I don’t owe him anything.’

Morgan sighs again, pushing the headphones out of the way before meeting Hotch’s eye, ‘I see him, everywhere I go. He’s at my home, on the porch waiting for me. He’s at the gym, leaning against a pick-up. He’s in every police department we visit. I just…’ He hides his face behind broad hands, shielding himself from keen profiler-eyes. ‘When I was a kid, I would have given anything just to see him one more time. One more _second_. And now… I wouldn’t be able to face him.’

‘Why not?’

A bitter laugh escapes the younger man, ‘you know why not. How do you tell your dad you bashed someone’s skull open, that you had a record? How do you tell him about the cabin? The hours spend _practicing_ with Buford?’

Hotch stays silent.

‘I... Every year I go down to his memorial. I listen to the speeches and I hold my mama’s hand. You know what everyone says? That he would have been so _proud_.’ Morgan’s voice cracks. His hands shake. ‘But I can’t even visit his grave, Hotch.’

For a moment, Hotch wants to be more like JJ, who would have reached out to take the shaking hands and held them until they were steady once more. Or like Reid, who always knows what to say to make anyone feel better, who can keep secrets like no-one else. Like Rossi, who can just sit there and be a comfort, all by himself. More like Garcia, who can make Morgan smile when the world seems too dark a place. But he’s not like them. He’s unsure of what to say, what to do.

Part of him wants to tell Morgan how he respects him, for bouncing back, for overcoming all adversity, for always being the rock they all lean on. How much he cares about him, how much he means to him. How proud he is of him.

His education tells him that grief is a life-long process. Experience tells him that even time can’t heal every wound.

Morgan leans back in his chair, eyes down. ‘It’s next week. His memorial.’

‘I know.’

‘Thanks for signing my leave.’

Hotch can see the other man shutting down, his shields go back up, his expression closes. And he wants to tell him something. Something he learned a long time ago. Something true.

He reaches out, his hand brushing over the watch Morgan always wears. His fingers on warm skin, curling around the wrist, feeling the soft drum of a beating heart.

‘Morgan,’ he says softly, willing the other man to meet his eye. ‘I want you to know… ‘

_My respect for you is boundless. And I would lay my life in your hands, knowing I would be safe from harm.  And if I met your dad, I would tell him that I, too, am so proud of you._

‘There’s no shame in surviving.’

Morgan’s shoulders relax a little. He slumps in his seat. The haunted look doesn’t disappear, but he meets Hotch’s eye this time. And he smiles.

‘Thanks Hotch.’

‘Anytime.’

They both mean it.


	12. Erin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave thinks about Erin, who was fierce and so loved.

 

* * *

 

 

David thinks about Erin often. She’s always Erin to him, always has been, even though everyone else insists on calling her _Strauss_. Of course, their relationship had been quite different. He got to see her when she woke up, still sleepy, with softer eyes. Or late at night, curled op on her couch with her hands around a cup of coffee. The others only saw her behind a desk, at the office, or one time out in the field where she had to wear the mask of professionalism.

He understands why they might have disliked her at first. She cracked down on Hotch, sometimes too hard, a mixture of fear for her promotion and attempt to keep this team in check. It wasn’t always fair, he supposes, but she tried to be just. In the end, they all came to see her differently. As a fighter. A fearless woman.

He supposes that it wasn’t easy, being the supervisor of this team. They never really talked about it when they were home, but he realizes now that it must have been challenging, even for her. This team has a way of worming into your heart. With those bright, young members who all have a story that makes your heart ache. They all inspire great loyalty. The balance between that loyalty and fairness is a thin line. The scale tends to tip in their favor, he knows. Everyone knows that.

That often results in the other BAU teams sneering at them in the hallways, whispered conversations at the coffee machine, evil eyes across the bullpen. They became known as a rogue team, a rumor Erin couldn’t let slip. She was duty-bound to act, to call her all-star team to order.

He never blamed her, though of course he too felt frustrated at times. They got the job done, simple as that. Maybe they toed the line a few times but they never crossed it in his opinion. He never was a politician, is not known to handle things with velvet gloves and these were delicate matters. They could have been in more trouble after Foyet, after Doyle. She played the game for them, keeping them focused on the job at hand, which ever it may have been at the time.

There’s no doubt that she protected this team until her last breath. And he loved her for that, too.

The others might not have seen it, might never have noticed, but she was fond of them.

They fought for a cause they believed in. A safer America, for them, for their children. They stood up for people forgotten, neglected, buried. But most of all, they fought for each other. To keep sane, to keep safe. She admired the way Garcia watched over them from her little lair in Quantico. And she always strived to do the same.

She rarely joined them in the field. Embarrassed after that one case, maybe, or not wanting to distract them while on the job. Everyone knows that Morgan hates having to explain himself to anyone other than Hotch and even Rossi would have bristled to have to explain his doings to someone with so little experience.

That doesn’t mean that she didn’t enjoy watching them in the field, however. Quite the opposite. It’s easy to know that you have an all-star team. One that beats the odds, one that solves cases faster than any other, one that stands vast against adversity. She reads the reports, sees the items on the five o’clock news, but there’s a difference between knowing it because the statistics tell you and seeing them in action.

The team, at the time, might have thought that she was making sure they functioned to the bureau’s standards and in theory, she was. But she knew from the start that she wouldn’t have anything to contribute to the case. She’s not a profiler. Nor a babysitter. She wasn’t there to check on them. She just wanted to see them in another environment. Away from the bureaucratic mess of the BAU headquarters, away from prying eyes, at the place where they were needed most. She wanted to see what made this team so different. So much more than just another one of her units.

What made them the best. And what made them family. 

When he looks at his team now, he wishes that she could have seen more moments like these:

 

 

Hotch is slumped in his chair with a lazy grin on his face. His head is lulled back, eyes half-closed as he listens to JJ, who’s telling him an outrageous story about her time in Washington. There’s a cold beer in his hands. Restless fingers scratch at the label between swings.

Reid is sitting next to him, a tumbler of bourbon in his hands. He’s reading a passage of a book out loud to Morgan who keeps complaining about the speed of Reid’s speech and the quality of the book. When Reid explains that it’s an Epic, he tosses a crumpled up napkin at him. The genius takes it all in stride, kicking off his sneakers and turning in his seat. He plants his feet into Hotch’s lap, wriggling the toes covered with non-matching socks.

Hotch doesn’t even look down, merely takes another swing of his beer and rubs at Reid’s ankle with his free hand, like he does with Jack when they’re curled up together on the couch at home.

Morgan, who was in the middle of changing shirts when Reid started his reading session, just sits there with his shirt half buttoned up. Garcia keeps calling in to sneak a peek. Hotch keeps accepting the call on his laptop.

 

 

If someone from the outside ever got hold of those images, they would see a rogue team. One that doesn’t respect boundaries, doesn’t heed regulation, doesn’t care about professionalism.

Erin would have seen a family. Dysfunctional and broken and patched back together, yes.

But aren’t all families?


	13. Marksmen

 

* * *

 

 

Dave hates Gideon. With a passion.

It’s possibly the worst-kept secret within the BAU and one of the favorite conversation topics around the coffee machine. This is because while everyone knows it, no-one really knows why. Some speculate that Dave hated how Gideon was often portrayed as the founding father of the BAU when the Italian had as much a claim. Others blame the _better profiler than thou_ attitude. Both are true, of course, but that made Dave dislike him, not hate. He only started to hate Gideon when he was long gone.

It’s not because he left, even though Dave has never seen a team look so devastated and lost. It’s what he left behind, his legacy.

 

_You don’t have to carry a gun to kill someone._

 

 

 

Seaver is sitting by herself, trembling hands wipe away tears while her shoulders shake. She’s trying to be quiet. Morgan, Hotch, Reid and JJ are sitting at front of the plane and she doesn’t want to appear weak. Rossi sees, of course. He knows. And doesn’t think she’s weak.

‘Hey kid,’ he says, half expecting Reid to look up, but Seaver is the only one to react. ‘Come here.’

She glances at the others, especially weary of Hotch’s steady gaze, not yet used to his expressionless face; jumping to the conclusion that he must disapprove or be upset with her.

‘We’re off the clock,’ Rossi smiles. ‘He’s all bark now.’

She attempts a smile but it turns into a hushed sob as she slides over to sit next to him. He curls his arm around her shoulder and allows her to cry into his shoulder. Desperate fingers clutch onto his jacket; needing something to hold on to.

‘It’s okay,’ he tells her. ‘You’re okay. You saved yourself.’

‘I profiled him and now he’s dead,’ she cries.

‘I know,’ he strokes her hair. ‘But you did good.’

‘I killed him. I _talked_ to him and now he’s _dead_ ,’ she sobs as if he doesn’t understand. ‘I never wanted him to…’

‘Shh,’ Rossi kisses her hair, ‘it’ll be okay.’

 

 

 

The thing Dave hates most about the statement is this; it turns their profession into a murder weapon. Something that hurts, maims, _kills_.

Maybe Gideon forgot that profiling requires you to crawl into someone’s brain. That you have to become the other person, find their demons and wield them like a surgeon’s knife. Maybe he forgot that if you look into the abyss; the abyss also looks into you.

It’s shouldn’t be different than pulling a trigger, but it is. Profiling requires you to feel, to sympathize, to know everything about your subject. And if worse comes to worse; you need to be able to make his demons seem so horrid that there’s but one way out. It’s better to have one victim than dozens. And a victim who is also the unsub is just another win in the bureau’s books.

Pulling a trigger is so much easier. It doesn’t require anything but a good eye and steady hand. It’s over quick; no time to get to know your victim, to learn his secrets, summon his demons. And, almost, no time to feel any guilt.

That’s why Dave teaches his students this; if there is no other way out, if this is your last option; take your gun and pull the trigger.

That way, when you look in the mirror, you won’t see any demons in your eyes but your own.

And he likes his students. The eager, the fast and smart, the young. But unlike Gideon he wants them to be able to look themselves in the eye, forever. He doesn’t want them to lurk in unsteady minds, looking for that one trigger to save their lives. He doesn’t want them to whisper poisoned words into the ears of criminals until the world seems too dark a place and lives far too long.

Those words stay with you. And in the dark, when you’re home safe with blood on your tongue, they come to haunt you.

( _they don’t need you. nobody needs you. they’re better off without you. no-one cares. it’s easier this way. no-one loves you. put the gun in your mouth. they hate you. you won't be missed._ )

And that is the danger, really. Because those words are like bullets. And profilers are marksmen.

They never miss.

And thanks to Gideon, they aim to kill.


	14. They all get them.

 

* * *

 

 

They all get them.

 

Hotch wakes up screaming. He sits up quickly, hand on his gun and the other balled into a fist, ready to strike. He breathes like a man drowning, great heaving gasps which wreck his body, pulling the stitches and later scar tissue. The shirt is soaked with sweat, dark patches on light fabric, spreading slowly.

It takes him a couple of seconds to realize that he’s on the plane. The team, frozen in place, waits. No-one makes any sudden moves, no-one speaks.

‘I’m -,’ Hotch starts, rubbing his hands over his face and staggering to his feet. ‘I’m sorry, I - excuse me.’ He tries to walk calmly, but his hands find the walls as he moves; needing them to stay upright and he can’t get the door to the tiny bathroom open in one go. He fumbles with the handle.

No-one offers to help. They pretend everything is fine.

One day, a new recruit will try to aid his or her boss. And they will suffer the famous Hotchner Glare.

He doesn’t need help. Because in the bathroom, he’ll change shirts, wash up, take a couple of deep breaths. Ten minutes later he’ll walk out again, asking Reid to deal him into their game of cards.

And he’ll be okay.

 

 

JJ snaps awake. A sudden burst of hyper-awareness, eyes wide and terrified. She’ll stay frozen in her seat for a moment, before slowly uncurling from her position. Feet will touch ground, hands will slowly push the blanket down until the voices of her friends reach her.

She assures them that she’s fine, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, flashing a fake smile.

They give her some space, but make sure to stay within her sights. Morgan’s booming laughter first startles her, but then soothes. When she’s ready, she’ll walk through the plane to refill her water bottle, just to have something to do.

And while she walks, she catches shards of conversations. Rossi and Hotch discussing soccer strategies. Reid telling Morgan about a concert he’d visited. Emily talking to Seaver about the academy.

Back in her seat, she’ll pull the blanket up again and close her eyes.

And let the voices of her friends lead her to better dreams.

 

 

Reid, too, wakes up screaming. He sits up, arms and legs flailing like he’s falling. There’s always a name on his lips on these nights. It depends on the name what happens next.

When it’s the memories of the shack, the shallow grave, of being forced to choose, he gets up and straightens his tie before finding Rossi. Always Rossi; the one who wasn’t there.

He’s the only one who can look him in the eye on those moments and not pity him.

When it’s a name that reflected hopes and dreams and a possible happy-ending for him, he finds Morgan. Their heads bend close together, whispered words of comfort and sorrow until smiles and nudges creep back into their conversation.

 

 

Emily gasps. Trembling hands push dark hair out of her face when dark eyes snap open. Bewilderment is slowly replaced by recognition as she sits up and looks around the small cabin. Someone hands her a glass of water, or tea, and only Reid makes her coffee.

After a couple of minutes, when people stop checking whether she’s okay, she’ll slip into the seat next to Hotch to tell him that she’s having a bad day.

He’ll close his paperwork, his book, put away his phone. And he’ll listen. And give advice, but mostly he just _listens_.

 

Rossi jerks awake but his mind instantly settles, steadying his hands and breathing as he looks around the cabin. And then… then he makes The Round.

Reid gets snapped at for drinking too much coffee and being too skinny while still eating fifty pounds of sugar on a regular day. Morgan gets shamed into calling his girlfriend to tell her they’re on their way home and yes, he’ll meet her for dinner tomorrow. JJ gets complimented on her hair and smile and Hotch gets bullied into eating something that isn’t wrapped in plastic and from a vending machine.

It reminds Morgan of the army; regular bed checks and the friendly how-are-you’s hidden behind harsh remarks. He doesn’t mind because it doesn’t happen often. And when it does he grins and bears it.

They all do. Even Hotch eats half of JJ’s home-made sandwich as a peace gesture. Reid switches to soda.

 

 

Morgan’s eyes snap open, but he remains still. His breathing is heavier and his fingers are white from where they cling onto the seat.

They will shake when he let’s go.

So he doesn’t. He closes his eyes again, forcing his mind back into the twilight that’s half-awake noises from his team members and forgotten screams from distant nightmares. And falls asleep.

When he wakes again, JJ’s hand is on his cheek, warm and gentle, and Reid carries his bag for him, saying he needs the exercise that is carrying Morgan’s entire wardrobe.

He’ll step into the broad daylight on the Quantico airstrip, leaving his ghosts behind.

 

 

Garcia is always alone when she gets them.

She wakes up shrieking, panic like a cold hand on her throat, fear like a past-bullet ramming straight into her heart, turning her blood cold and dead. For a couple of moment; the darkness stays with her, making her cry and shake, until she removes the mask and sees that her bedroom is but a realm of gentle shadows.

And even in the dark she can see the pictures on her walls.

JJ and Morgan pretending to blow smoke off their guns at the range; Reid and Henry on Halloween, both dressed up and excited; Morgan in his new desk, giving it the thumbs up; Rossi standing in his back garden, over-looking a party with a soft smile on his face; Hotch asleep on paperwork, one hand outstretched towards the picture of Jack, Emily holding up the ugliest teacup Garcia could find; Seaver at her graduation party; Blake in front of her classroom with Reid at her side; the team (with Seaver, with Blake, with Emily, with Elle, with Gideon, with Todd, even one with Strauss) gathered in the bullpen.

The newest addition; Cruz in his still-empty new office, looking a bit sheepish, rests on the floor; ready for Morgan to put it up over the weekend.

She shouldn’t be able to see their faces so clearly, not in this light. But she doesn’t need the pictures to remember her friends.

And even in this darkness, she’s never alone.


	15. Sensory overload

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: some sensory overloaded reid and caring team

 

For [Aspie_Giraffe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspie_Giraffe/pseuds/Aspie_Giraffe) who provided the prompt.

Thank you! 

 

* * *

 

 

Morgan was the first to notice, eight days ago. At a crime scene Reid wouldn’t meet his eye. He wouldn’t answer questions, kept wandering off, and when Morgan reached out to grab his arm Reid had flinched.

JJ started to notice at the police station, six days ago. During one of their discussions, Reid suddenly stood up to close the door with a bang, complaining about the noise the coffee machine made. Everyone on the team exchanged looks, but no-one said anything.

Four days ago Reid started a screaming match with Rossi over something insignificant. It ended in a lot of bristling, snarling and slamming of doors. Hotch wasn’t there when it happens but he found Reid in a dark room hours later. He noticed how his hands trembled, how he kept scratching his cheek. He’d send him back to the hotel to get some rest.

Two days ago found Reid in the conference room, silent and still. He said nothing, looked at no-one, hardly made a move.

It was only yesterday that Hotch found out what’s wrong.

 

 

‘Are you using?’ the unit chief asks now that they’re alone. Reid is sitting hunched over in his chair, hands on his head and elbows on his knees. ‘If you are, you need to tell me now. _Right now_!’

‘Please,’ Reid whispers, fingers digging into his hair. ‘Don’t…’

‘Don’t _what_?’ Hotch demands angrily. ‘We had a deal!’

‘It’s not that…’

‘No? Then tell me what it is!’ Hotch shouts, planting his hands on the table with a loud bang. ‘You’re constantly fighting with everyone, you’re irritable, you haven’t finished a single task during this entire case, Reid! Tell me what it is then, if you’re not shooting up!’

‘Please stop shouting,’ Reid murmurs, hands now sliding down to his ears, ‘ _please_ Aaron.’

The use of his given name takes Hotch aback. His mind races.  Reid isn’t meeting his eye, he’s fidgeting, restless, he’s angry all the time, irritated, constantly changing activities. And now he’s covering his ears.

Oh God.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Hotch breathes before walking over to the windows and closing the blinds.

‘I thought it was just a migraine, at first. And then… I just… I don’t know.’

Hotch shakes his head but refrains from reprimanding his subordinate. The young man is obviously in pain and he doesn’t want to add to the misery. Instead he opens the door and calls JJ over, being careful to keep his voice down. ‘I need you to take Reid back to the hotel.’

She looks surprised but doesn’t question him. ‘Okay, I’ll get us a car.’

Hotch nods and ducks back into the room, kneeling next to Reid to rummage through his messenger bag. After a couple of seconds he finds a pair of sunglasses and hands them over.

‘Thanks,’ Reid murmurs, slipping them on. ‘I can drive myself, it’s okay, I know you’ve got the press conference....’

‘I can do the conference. JJ is taking you.’

‘You hate the press.’

‘It’s the cameras,’ Hotch says, ‘they add 10 pounds.’

Reid huffs out a breath of laughter and squints up at his boss. ‘Never knew you were vain.’

Hotch smiles back, ‘there are many things you don’t know about me, Doctor Reid. Come on, on your feet. Let’s get you back to the hotel.’

 

 

Maybe it was stupid, but Reid thought that the team would leave him be once he was back at the hotel.

When he told JJ that she could go back to join the others at the police station, she just looked at him oddly before settling on the empty bed across from his with the case files. She’s careful enough to make as little noise as possible.

After five minutes of awkwardness, Reid gives in and kicks off his shoes, socks, pulls his shirt over his head and lays down on his bed. ‘It’s the tags,’ he murmurs when JJ glances up for a moment.

‘You don’t have to explain.’

He closes his eyes.

 

 

When he wakes up, Rossi is in the room. He’s sitting on the chair near the desk and watches as Reid slowly sits up, one hand pressed against the side of his head. There’s a throbbing pain just behind his left ear. It makes him wince as he moves.

He rises and then staggers to the bathroom. Rossi doesn’t get up to help. Dark eyes just follow him steadily. When he gets back five minutes later, Rossi is still watching him.

Reid feels the anger boiling up in him, he scowls at the Italian, ‘what? Hotch send you here to make sure I wasn’t overdosing? That’s what you all thought, isn’t it? That’s all I am to you. A drug addict. And a machine.’

It’s not fair. He knows it’s not, it doesn’t even make sense because he’s grateful that Rossi is here, that he’s not alone, but he can’t help himself. He just needs to lash out.

Rossi just looks at him.

’48 million people, ages 12 and above, have used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons. I represent 20% of the U.S. population. That’s how unique I am,’ Reid says as he lowers himself back onto the bed. ‘My mother used to call me special. I know why she stopped now.’

And Rossi watches. And bites his tongue.

When Reid is asleep, Rossi walks over to the bed. He brushes the dirty blonde hair away from the clammy forehead and kneels besides Reid. ‘Hang in there, kiddo,’ he whispers.

 

 

‘We got him,’ Morgan says as he slips into the room. ‘You look awful.’

Reid laughs and pushes his glasses higher up his nose, ‘thanks, Morgan.’

‘How are you?’

‘Tired.’

‘But the pain’s gone?’ Morgan asks as he throws his go-bag onto the empty bed. The one that’s hosted almost every team member over the last two days, except for Hotch.

‘Yeah. Case is over, then?’

‘Yup, just the last paperwork and loose ends. We’re flying home tomorrow.’

‘Good.’ Reid is sitting on the edge of his bed. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else. The dark-blonde hair is a mess of curls and the green eyes are blood-shot. He looks miserable. His toes are digging into the carpet, his arms tremble a bit as he holds himself up.

‘Where were you going, pretty boy?’ Morgan asks with a frown. ‘Lie down before you fall down.’

‘I was going to take a shower, but…’

‘Right,’ Morgan bends down to remove his shoes, then his socks. He puts his gun in the safe, throws his credentials onto the bed before shrugging out of his shirt.

‘What are you doing?’ Reid asks warily.

‘Getting you into that shower, come on, pretty boy.’

‘You know, calling me pretty isn’t going to make me feel less awkward right now.’

Morgan grins back, ‘wait until we get all close and personal… and _wet_.’ Reid scowls and blushes faintly, which makes Morgan sober up rather quickly. The dark-skinned agent kneels down before the younger man, ‘hey, look at me. We’re friends. _Best_ friends. Come on, you’ll feel loads better after a shower.’

‘You really don’t have to…’

The excuses stop when he stands and tries to take a few steps and nearly keels over. Morgan is there, of course, catching him before he falls.

‘Let me help you,’ his friend urges softly. ‘I’d feel better if you would just let me help you.’

‘Well, if it makes you feel any better…’

‘It would,’ Morgan nods, wrapping an arm around his friend’s waist. ‘Come on, slow and steady.’

 

 

The airport is a challenge. There are so many people, noises, and scents that Reid fears he might fall back into another episode. But then there’s Morgan, a steady presence by his side, who offers him his jacket. Reid shrugs it on and lets the hood cover his head. He can’t really explain it but the weight and warmth makes him feel instantly better.

JJ makes sure they can board the plane in no time at all and Rossi fills out Reid’s paperwork for the gun on his belt. Morgan carries his bag.

On the plane Reid takes one of the single chairs. The noise of the engine is loud in his ears, but it’s manageable because everyone else is quiet.

When they’re level, Hotch walks over, ‘come on,’ he says, unbuckling Reid like he does with Jack when they go for a drive. Reid stands, blinking sleepily, and Hotch guides him to the small sofa by putting a warm hand in his neck.

‘Get settled,’ the unit chief says while he grabs a blanket from one of the overhead compartments. And Reid lies down, yawning. The blanket is draped over his body, tucked in at his feet and Hotch kneels beside him.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Just tired.’

‘Good. Try to get some sleep, Morgan will drive you home when we land.’

Reid, too tired to protest, just nods.

‘And Rossi will bring you some food tomorrow morning, while JJ comes around to check whether your apartment is the health hazard she remembers.’ Reid’s eyes snap open, and Hotch looks back innocently.

‘Fine,’ Reid snaps, tugging the blanket higher, ‘just don’t tell me you’re going to swing by tomorrow night to tuck me into bed.’

‘I won’t,’ Hotch says while he makes sure the blanket covers Reid’s shoulder.

Reid moans softly, ‘oh god, you’re doing it now!’

The unit chief gives him a fond smile and squeezes his shoulder for a moment, ‘get some sleep, genius.’


	16. Golden tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ and Kate talk about their first case together.

 

* * *

 

 

Spoilers for the new season, episode one!

 

* * *

 

 

When Morgan is asleep, Kate turns to the small window and watches the clouds drift by. It’s dark, they’re wisps of silver against black, barely visible yet tempting her to reach out and touch them. The plastic window feels cold against her fingertips. It trembles softly. Not for the first time she wonders how the plastic could ever be strong enough to last on such heights, with such pressures.

JJ, almost asleep on the seat opposite her, catches her expression. ‘What’s wrong?’

Kate first wants to shrug and deny, but then she says; ‘it’s just… I feel a bit… stupid.’

JJ frowns and sits up, ‘why?’

‘It just happened so fast, joining the team. I feel like this case was still my interview.’

‘So?’

‘So,’ Kate laughs a bit, ‘I ended with my face in the dirt and the unsub right on top of me. Hotchner had to save my life. That is kind of the BAU equivalent of giving a presentation with your fly down but more… lethal.’

JJ snorts.  ‘I think you did good. Even with your fly down.’

Kate grins back, ‘thanks.’

On the other side of the plane, Hotchner is vast sleep. She wonders what he thinks of her now. Maybe, in the morning, he’ll shift through the stacks of applications again, trying to find someone else. Someone better.

‘Hey,’ JJ leans forward. Her hand wraps around Kate’s. ‘Come on, it was a mistake.’

‘Mistakes like that can get you killed.’

‘We had your back.’

Kate turns away, looks out of the window again. ‘I didn’t have yours.’

JJ is quiet for a long time. Then she tugs the blanket tighter around her, huddling into its warmth before speaking. ‘I had a partner once,’ she says. ‘We were supposed to interview a witness who turned out to be the unsub. Somehow we got separated and my partner got taken. He was tortured. Drugged. And I thought it was all my fault.’

‘What…’ Kate starts and then stops, ‘was he…’

‘He managed to get a message to Hotch. It took a while, but he’s okay now. I thought he would hate me forever, for not having his back, but it was a mistake. We made a mistake and he paid the price. And if I could have, I would have taken his place, but I couldn’t. Instead I fought to make things right, to get him back.’

Kate swallows and blinks, not knowing what to say.

JJ smiles sadly, ‘even now I’m sorry for what happened to him, but we learn things the hard way in this profession. Hotch doesn’t blame you for what happened and he didn’t blame me then. The only thing that is important to him, to us, is the lessons we learn. And how we apply them next time.’

‘What did you learn?’

‘That we all make mistakes. And that if you make a mistake, your team will always have your back.’ JJ reaches forward again, folding her hands over Kate’s. ‘And they will never think that you’ve led them down.’

Kate squeezes her hands, ‘thank you.’

‘That’s okay,’ JJ says as she sits back again, snuggling into the warmth of her blanket. ‘Want to hear some truth, though?’

Kate lifts her eyebrow questioningly.

‘Except for coming home, there’s nothing more reassuring in like, _life_ , than having Aaron Hotchner reach for his gun on your behalf.’ Kate laughs and JJ grins back, ‘I’m telling you, Kate! Or maybe Morgan getting ready to knock some door down,’ she mimics his voice, ‘out tha way, baby girl, I’ve got this.’

Kate folds her hand over her mouth to smother her giggles.

‘It’s crazy, the things you start to love when you do this job long enough. Not just the bad coffee, you know? Crazy things, like Reid getting his hands on a map. My God. Some cases I can just cry with joy when he pulls out some markers and a goddamn map.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘I am! Add a mathematical formula to the equation and you’re half-way home! _Add an equation,_ period _._ ’

Rossi, who got up to get him and Reid something to drink, stops by their seats. He looks down at the giggling girls and lifts an eyebrow. ‘What’s got you all excited?’

‘Reid,’ JJ answers with a grin.

‘I don’t even want to know,’ Rossi says before moving on.

‘What about him then?’ Kate asks. ‘What about him makes you go weak in the knees?’

JJ smirks, ‘he’s got a golden tongue.’

 


	17. Tough love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The missing conversation between Hotch and Morgan.

* * *

 

Better safe than sorry, I'm not sure what still counts as spoilers but;

references to episode 2, season 9. 

Sorry for the long wait between updates. I got distracted.

 

* * *

 

 

Morgan grabs Hotch’s arm when the older profiler attempts to leave the plane. The rest of the team is already on the airstrip, stretching and walking towards their waiting cars. JJ turns for a moment, frowning when she sees that Hotch isn’t right behind her, but then Reid asks a question and her attention is diverted.

‘I hope you realize what you’ve done,’ Morgan says, tightening his grip on Hotch.

The look he gets is cold and disapproving, ‘and what would that be?’ The tone is level, but there’s a hint of warning lurking around the words. Dark eyes dare him to continue, but Morgan is too angry to heed any notice.

‘You send her off to Texas, man. You let her visit that creep!’

Hotch sighs and squares his shoulders. Maybe he’d thought that Morgan would let it slide. ‘She had vacation days…’

‘You should have said _no_!’ Morgan’s voice bounces off the walls as his fingers dig into Hotchner’s skin in anger. ‘There is nothing to gain from visiting that son of a bitch in jail!’

‘You’re projecting,’ Hotchner says sternly, pushing the other guy away from him so his arm is let go of. ‘Just because you can’t see the merits, doesn’t mean…’

‘ _Bull shit_!’ Morgan snarls. ‘Don’t tell me you can see _merits_ to this. You just want to it go away, you want her to stop crying over it and this was the easiest way to deal with it, wasn’t it? Just send her away. Let her deal with it on her own. All so you don’t have to see or deal with it.’

Hotch doesn’t take the bait, doesn’t rise up to meet Morgan who’s just out to hurt at this point. He doesn’t even believe his own words, Aaron can see it in the micro expressions flashing over his face, in the way his hand is curl into a fist, ready to strike. He wants a fight, nothing more.

‘She’s not like us,’ Hotch answers. ‘She can’t compartmentalize, you know that. The nightmares won’t end when Bailer is dead and they won’t fade over time. If this helps her cope, then I have no problem sending her on a holiday.’

‘That man tried to _murder_ her!’

‘And he’s _nothing_ to _us_. We’ve seen it all before. Murderers, rapists, terrorists, they mean _nothing_ to us. We look at them and see their tombstones. We dig their graves, Morgan. Don’t you understand? When we go out in the field, we try to get inside their heads, to understand and sympathize. But the moment those cuffs slam onto their wrists, they’re dead to us. It’s that easy. Like flipping a switch. With those cuffs on, they’re nothing but a number in our system. Unworthy of our time, respect and compassion.’

‘And what? You’re sending Garcia down there to do what? Toughen up?’

Hotch laughs softly, shaking his head, ‘don’t tell me you see her as weak.’

Morgan holds up his hands in a gesture that screams; I don’t know what to think.

‘It takes a tremendous amount of strength to still see the good in people after doing this job for so long, Morgan. We are so jaded by this profession that we just don’t want to see it anymore. We’ve stopped believing in happy endings and good people.’ Hotch straightens his tie and looks away, ‘I don’t want her to stop believing.’

‘He’s going to let her down. There’s nothing good inside him.’

‘Sometimes we do things not for others, but for ourselves. She’s not going over there to look for goodness in him. She needs proof that it’s still inside _her_. She needs to know that she’s nothing like _us_ , Morgan. And I’ll be damned if I keep that from her. She deserves better.’

The dark-skinned agent shakes his head, ‘no, she deserved better when she asked whether she could go to Texas. She deserved to have _no_ for an answer, Hotch. She doesn’t need some scumbag on death row in order to know that she’s good and kind and better than we will ever be!’

‘She disagreed. She’s a grown woman, Morgan.’

‘That doesn’t mean she doesn’t need to be protected!’ Morgan screams, ‘she’s our friend, man! We’re supposed to have her back! We protect each other, even from ourselves.’

Hotch grinds his teeth, setting his jaw, ‘are we done?’

‘No, we’re not done!’ Morgan grabs his shoulder, crowding the other man, getting in his face. ‘This is going to blow up in her face. And when it does, it’s going to be all on _you_.’

‘If you’re so sure that it will,’ Hotch says, not backing up, ‘then why are you still here?’

Morgan frowns, surprised and a little taken aback.

‘She’s on her way home right now. And you’re still here,’ Hotch breaks Morgan’s grip on him easily, tucks his jacket straight and checks his watch. ‘Some _friend_ you are.’

He leaves Morgan standing there, angry and speechless.

 


	18. Calling Emily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheeky conversation between Hotch and Emily.

 

* * *

 

 

‘How’s Jack?’

Aaron is sitting at the back of the plane, one hand curled around his mobile phone which is pressed to his ear. His tie is hanging loose, his shirt is wrinkled and stained. There’s blood on his cuffs. He rolls the sleeves up to hide the stains. He’s not really sure where his jacket is.

‘Yeah,’ he says distractedly, rubbing with his hand over his face, his eyes, ‘he’s… he’s good. He…yeah.’ His voices sounds all wrong. Broken. Far too fragile. ‘He had.. he had a science fair, I think.’

‘Really? What did he do for a project?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Hotch shuts his eyes, squeezing them until he can see stars. He tries to breathe through his nose, ‘something with volcano's.’

‘He should have asked Reid for help, then he’d get a phd for it, probably.’

Hotch snorts, an undignified sound, but he releases the pressure on his eyes and opens them again, leaning back in his seat. The rest of the team is sitting on the other side of the plane, most are asleep. Reid’s cheek is bruised and JJ has a nasty cut on her arm. Morgan is sleeping on his belly, his shirt as pillow and there are bandages all over his back. Slash marks from a sharp knife. Rossi isn’t physically hurt, and he watches over them as they sleep. The kids, he likes to call them. But only when they can’t hear.

‘Probably,’ Hotch answers, ‘what are you doing?’

‘Isn’t it supposed to be; what are you wearing?’

‘We’re not having phone sex.’

Emily’s laughter rings in his ears, that loud burst of happiness he still misses. Rossi looks up sharply from his book but smiles when Hotch rolls his eyes at him. ‘Oh my God,’ Emily laughs, ‘I got _Aaron_ _Hotchner_ to say phone sex. Someone give _me_ a phd.’

‘This is really inappropriate,’ Hotch says while rubbing at the bloodstain on his shirt. He can’t remember whose it is. JJ’s, maybe. Probably Morgan’s.

‘Made you smile,’ Emily points out with a hint of pride.

‘You did.’

Emily laughs again, ‘okay. Well, to answer your question; I was just about to leave the office.’

‘Liar.’

‘Okay, I’m just finishing up these last reports, but then I’m going home. The worst thing happened today at the office.’

Hotch frowns a little, looking out of the window. He knows all about Worst Things happening at the office. There’s dried blood under his fingernails, a sure sign that all did not go according to plan. ‘What happened?’

‘Coffee machine broke.’

He’s startled into another laugh.

‘What? That’s a serious health hazard! Stop laughing! Can you imagine an office like ours running on decaf?’

‘I thought you were in London,’ Hotch smiles, ‘do they even drink coffee? Or is it really only tea?’

‘That’s horrible stereotypical of you, Aaron,’ she chides. ‘And I made them all switch to coffee. They’re so much more productive now.’

‘You sound like an evil overlord.’

‘Satan in heels, that’s me.’

And he wants to say; no, you’re not. You’re the one I call when Morgan’s blood stained my shirt, when I can’t even think, when everything was too close for comfort. You’re not here, even though I begged you to come back and you’re still the only one I call.

‘Yeah,’ he breathes, ‘you’re right.’

‘Hey!’

‘You said it,’ he retorts. ‘I’m just confirming.’

‘Hmm,’ she’s silent for a little while. ‘’So what happened to you today?’

He’s not even sure. One moment they were fine, next moment Morgan is on the floor, bleeding and JJ’s next. Reid managed to subdue the unsub, but not before catching a knee into his face. It happened so fast. He was only steps away, but he couldn’t reach Morgan until JJ was already down, couldn’t do anything when Reid groaned in pain and tackled the unsub.

‘Same old, same old,’ he murmurs. ‘Though Reid did a Morgan.’

‘He did? That’s my boy.’

‘Yeah…’

‘But you got him, right? I saw the press conference on the news. I thought you hated doing those.’

‘JJ caught a knife with her forehead, they wanted someone who wasn’t bleeding at the time.’

‘Auch,’ Emily winces, ‘though one, wasn’t it?’

‘He got the jump on us.’

‘That doesn’t sound like you.’

‘We can’t be lucky all the time.’

Emily falls silent again, for just a moment. ‘You know, Hotch? You can just say that you’re having a bad day. Because right now it sounds like you’re sulking and trying to find ways to blame this on a lack of knowledge or expertise and that just wouldn’t be fair to anyone.’

He knows she’s right. They’re highly trained agents. They don’t rely on such feeble concepts as luck or fate. They followed protocol to the letter, but no protocol could have kept that knife off of Morgan’s skin tonight.

Some days nothing can protect them, it seems. Not their combined intellect, not their gut feelings, not protocol. _Nothing_.

‘I’m having a bad day,’ he admits softly.

‘Tell me what’s really on your mind.’

‘He had a _knife_.’ Hotch puts his elbows on his knees, hanging his head and rubbing at the back of his neck with his free hand. Nails scratching over skin, hard enough to leave marks. Not painful enough to take his mind off of distant memories. ‘He had a knife and he was looming over Morgan and I just…’ He trails off, hand in his hair now, pulling softly.

‘You followed protocol, cuffed the guy, slammed him into a police car and did the press conference, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘I can’t sleep.’

‘You hardly ever do on flights homewards,’ Emily points out. ‘Why is it bothering you now?’

Hotch gives a one-shouldered shrug even though she can’t see. ‘Because Jack is waiting for me when I get home? Because he’ll be all excited and full of stories and I’m… I’m _tired_. I haven’t seen my boy in two weeks and the thought of having to face him right now makes me sick because I can’t be happy and excited and… It’s not enough. And It’s not fair to him.’

Emily hums in agreement, ‘is this like when you know you have to get up early the next morning and all you can think about is how need to fall asleep _right now_?  You know, that your mind is just looping; I need to sleep now, I need to sleep now!’

Hotch frowns and doesn’t respond.

‘It sounds like it!’ Emily laughs, ‘because all you seem to be saying is; I need to get happy in the next five minutes, or he’s going to think I’m a bad dad! Get happy, get happy, get happy!’

‘That’s not what I’m saying!’

‘It really does sound like it! And it’s stupid!’

‘Well, thanks.’

‘Hey, you called me an evil overlord, we’re even now. But seriously? Aaron, we both know that the moment you see Jack, you’re not even going to remember that you were tired. And you’re going to coo over that science project and listen to all his stories until he runs out of things to say.’

‘He never runs out of things to say.’

‘Cherish that,’ Emily tells him fondly. ‘Because he’s going to be a teenager one day and then you’ll have to use all those interrogation skills just to find out how his day at school was.’

Hotch laughs, ‘Maybe you’re right…’

‘Aaron Hotchner, I am always right.’

‘Of course, I do apologize.’

She laughs again, ‘good, as you should.’ Hotch hums his agreement before leaning back in his seat. There are no clouds in the sky. ‘So, any other mid-BAU crisis we need to deal with this fine morning?’ Emily asks lightly.

‘There’s just this one thing that has been nagging me,’ Hotch answers while he rolls up his sleeves higher until he can’t see the blood anymore. He pulls off his tie and throw it on the chair next to him.

‘What?’

‘Emily,’ he says while turning towards the small window, watching the cloudless sky. ‘What _are_ you wearing?’

 


	19. Danny's pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plane reroutes to Kansas. s09e11.

 

* * *

 

 

‘I’ll have the pilot reroute us to Kansas City,’ Hotch says while getting up and moving towards the front of the plane.

The team breathes an universal sigh of resignation. Phones are pulled out to cancel plans with friends and family, nobody tries to argue with the unit chief, they all understand why they’re heading to yet another crime scene, why they never get any rest. It’s what they do. Who they are, even.

‘Right,’ Morgan says as he sits up straighter and reaches for his tablet. ‘Let’s see then.’

‘Classic overkill,’ Rossi states as he swipes through the crime scene photos with a frown. ‘Looks like he used his hands, boots; strong guy.’

‘Are we looking at a team?’ Reid asks, ‘first two victims were attacked simultaneously. It’s hard to subdue one while beating the other to death.’

‘Maybe he blitz-attacked them, hit the girl over the head and lunged at the boy.’ Morgan shrugs, ‘Could be a one man job. Maybe that’s why he switched to a single victim this time, easier to control.’

‘Yeah, but what about the woman’s clothing with the latest victim? Why would he add that to the mix? He already had the victim at his mercy the first time around.’ Rossi raises an eyebrow. ‘Humiliation?’

‘Probably. Or maybe he saw the guy as being feminine?’ Blake offers, ‘Garcia, is there any indication the second male victim was gay?’

‘Nope,’ comes the quick reply.

‘Maybe it’s something he finds sexually arousing,’ Reid murmurs, leaning over to Rossi so he can see the pictures. ‘He could revisit the scene.’

‘But they were all found in public places,’ Morgan retorts, ‘if he revisited them, he would need more privacy and it would make sense to hide the bodies. All victims were found within hours after the attack. He wouldn’t have time to revisit.’

‘But what if he took-‘

‘ _No_.’ JJ, who’d been sitting at the table quietly, staring out of the window, now turns towards her team. Her jaw is set and there are unshed tears in her eyes. ‘No, stop. We’re not going to talk about… I don’t want to hear it.’

The rest of the team falls silent, surprised and unsure. Hotch returns from his discussion with the pilots. They can feel the plane tilting, altering its course to head straight to Kansas. Reid glances up at Hotch, wide eyes urging him to say something.

JJ tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, ‘we’ve just closed a two week investigation on a guy who tortured women who resembled his mother. Two weeks of classic sadism, torture methods, the pictures of fourteen young women on our boards. I’m not…’ her voice breaks a little as she shoves her tablet away from her, ‘I’m not doing it, Hotch. I’m _not_.’

Hotch looks at Rossi for help, but the Italian is studying the young mother. ‘Okay,’ he says slowly, as he takes a seat.

‘Put it away,’ JJ bites at Morgan, who swiped his tablet to see another picture. ‘Put it down, now.’

He does so, eyeing her warily. Rossi and Blake also put their tablets back onto the table.

‘Right,’ JJ takes a deep breath and flashes them a fake smile, ‘we’re just.. we’re just going to talk, okay? About something nice. Something _normal_.’

Reid blows air into his cheeks and then lets it pop out, glancing at his team members.

Morgan fiddles with his headphones and doesn’t look up.

Rossi lifts an eyebrow and stays silent.

Blake studies her nails.

Hotch thinks about how they’re all too far gone already.

‘A new restaurant opened right next to Quantico,’ Garcia pipes up from the screens. ‘This little place, with the red curtains? I think it’s Italian….’ She trails off, looking unsure.

‘It’s called Danny’s,’ Reid supplies, recalling the name from take-away boxes littering the many desks at their headquarters.

‘That doesn’t sound very Italian,’ JJ says brightly. ‘Does it, Rossi?’

David glances at Hotch like he wants him to stop this forced conversation, but the unit chief stays silent. ‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘Thought it looked like a whore house with those curtains,’ Morgan adds, sagging in his seat again, ‘did you see those lights? Turns the whole block into a red light district.’

‘Their lasagna is really good, though,’ Hotch replies, joining the conversation. ‘And Jack liked their Hawaii pizza.’

‘You let your child eat _Hawaii pizza_?’ Rossi sounds outraged. ‘That’s both an insult to your kids taste buds and Italian cuisine. I’m not sure which I find worse.’

‘Henry loves Hawaii pizza,’ JJ smiles.

That unchains a discussion about pizza toppings, which leads to Reid being teased for his eating habits, which results in Morgan denying that he survives on fast food and ends in Rossi demanding they all come over at his place on a Sunday to enjoy a home-cooked, real Italian meal.

The plane fills with laughter and their usual banter. For a couple of hours they’re freed of the burden of their daily jobs. The strain slowly slips from their faces. Even Aaron cracks a smile.

After three hours, Garcia wipes tears of laughter from her eyes and opens the file, ‘I hate to say it, my loves, but you have one hour before touch-down.’

Everyone turns to look at JJ.

She smiles and takes her tablet, ‘well, let’s get started.’


	20. 422 days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid and Blake talk about visiting their homes.

* * *

 

 

Blake drapes the blanket over her shoulders before shuffling over to the row of seats where Reid is currently dwelling. He’s reading a thick book, flipping the pages over quickly as his eyes scan the words. When she sits down, he glances up, smiling a little.

‘Hey, mind if I sit here?’

‘No,’ he sits up and closes the book, ‘not at all. Everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ she answers his smile, tucking her feet beneath her. ‘It was really nice, you know, worlds colliding in my backyard.’

‘Your family is really nice.’

‘They are.’

Spencer nods a bit, that faint smile still lingering around his eyes and lips before he ducks his head and opens the book again. He flips page after page. The speed of it all still astounds Blake, even though she’s seen him read a million times. One deft finger trails the lines, gliding over the paper before he licks it to flip the page easily. The gestures are so automated that he probably doesn’t even notice he’s doing it anymore.

The rest of the team is silent. JJ is sitting at the front with Morgan, both texting on their phones. Rossi sits across from them, slumped in his seat with his head against the window, probably asleep. He twitches every now and then, fingers contracting on the table, making JJ look up in concern, but she smiles when the hand relaxes again.

Hotch is sitting across the asile, next to Blake, reading a novel he picked up at the bookstore of the airport. He has a steady rhythm of reading, though of course not as fast as Reid, and he doesn’t need his finger to keep track of his place in the text.

Blake shifts in her seat for a moment, contemplating something. Then she makes up her mind.

‘You said you hadn’t been home in 422 days.’

Reid’s finger halts immediately. He looks up, a bit wary, ‘I’m sorry?’

‘In the car, you said you hadn’t been home in 422 days. That’s a long time.’

Something flickers over the doctor’s face, ‘I suppose.’

Blake cocks her head, wondering why he’s suddenly shutting her out. They’ve been friends for a long time, or at least, she thought they were. She knows he’s a private person, but she hadn’t expected this kind of evasive behaviour.

He catches her look. ‘Vegas isn’t really next door,’ he says defensively. ‘And I write my mother every day.’

That’s news to her. Of course she’s seen him writing letters late at night, on the plane and in hotel rooms. The team never said anything about it, always waiting for him to finish when they were going out for dinner together, never complaining about him taking too long. She had wondered who the letters were for, but was afraid to ask.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it,’ she says. ‘I was just wondering.’

He looks like he wants to say;   _well, don’t_ , but he doesn’t say it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Blake notices that Hotch has stopped reading. His finger marks his spot on the paper, his eyes still on the words, but he hasn’t flipped a page in too long now.

Reid glances at him, jaw set and eyes hard, but then his face softens a little. He looks down at his book again, then closes it, leaning back in his seat. ‘My mom is a paranoid schizophrenic. She’s staying in a sanitarium in Vegas.’ He drums his fingers on the book for a second, glancing at Hotch again. ‘I don’t visit often because…’ he scratches at his neck, a nervous tick, ‘it’s, well, it’s hard to see her like that.’

‘I understand,’ Blake says softly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You didn’t know,’ he flashes her a fake smile. ‘She’s doing a lot better now, though. I might visit soon.’

Blake doesn’t quite know what to say so she just smiles back.

Reid turns back to his book, ears burning. After only a couple of lines, he looks up again. ‘I didn’t visit for a long time because I thought I was going to have a schizophrenic break. I had a lot of unexplained headaches. Hallucinations, too. I… That’s over now, but… Three more years.’ He smiles again, genuine this time. ‘941 days to be exact, until my 36th birthday. Schizophrenic breaks after that age are very rare.’

‘Is that why you stopped lecturing?’

Spencer shrugs, ‘I had a lot of things on my mind.’

‘You always do.’

He laughs at that, always looking years younger when he does.

‘But you’re welcome back anytime,’ Blake says, ‘the students always love your lectures. Right now we’re studying sociolinguistics.’

‘Oh, really? Have you discussed Briggs book on interview techniques yet?’

‘No, we’re just starting out with Labov’s department stores.’

‘Ah,’ he nods, ‘I see. You know what else is really interesting?’

Their conversation then dives into sociolinguistics and pragmatics, reminding Blake of the hours he’s spend in her office when he was younger, so eager and yet so insecure about his own abilities. He no longer quotes other researches every two seconds, but instead develops his own vision and ideas. She jumps in, always excited to trade notions with someone who’s so familiar with her field of work.

After a couple of minutes, Hotch closes his book. He gets up to go to the bathroom. When he passes Reid, he puts his hand on the doctor’s shoulder.

Reid stutters a bit, losing his trail of thought for a second as he beams up at his unit chief, always grateful for positive reinforcement, but he picks it up again quickly, asking Blake’s thought on a new research that’s being done.

And Blake knows that, even when the team shares their stories, there will always be chapters which will remain hidden to her.


	21. Here's to winning

* * *

 

 

The words haunt her.

_This wasn’t supposed to happen._

The woman is in every reflective surface she passes. In the mirrors of the strange hotel rooms, in every rear view mirror, in all the windows of the plane. Her tears are the raindrops of the clouds they fly through. They slide down ashen cheeks, drip onto trembling lips which still utter the words, even though she can’t hear them over the loud rumble of the jet during take-off.

It doesn’t matter. She can hear them in her dreams.

She won’t forget them.

At first she’d dismissed them as the words of any grieving family member. Just another way to express the agony of losing their beloved child. But now they’re smeared onto every ghost of her past. They’re drenched into the fabric of her whole being, every decision has led to this point, and it should have been such a happy thing. A _good_ thing. Everything she ever wanted; a member of the most elite team of the FBI. A living legend.

And then it all went to hell.

There’s blood on her hands and it won’t come off. It stained her very skin, seeped into her cells, mixing with her own blood. It’s slowly spreading through her veins, like poison, and she cares less and less with every girl that gets killed. Her emotions stutter to a halt, getting more numbed with every girl who can’t ever look herself in the eye again, every victim that won’t report the crime. And every unsub that walks.

She thought she could make a difference. That’s why she wanted to join the BAU. But now it’s all messed up. The tables have turned and she can’t stand the look of Hotch, who thinks he’s done nothing wrong, or Gideon, who won’t meet her eye anymore.

_This wasn’t supposed to happen._

She was so sure that this would never happen to her. At a young age she’d decided that she was never going to be that fragile girl who was afraid of the dark. She was going to be the one who stood up for all who were wronged, she would find every shadow and drag them into the light, she wanted to be the one everyone could cling to for that tiny sliver of hope.

And now she can’t sleep. There are nightmares lurking beneath her bed, crawling over her walls. In the dark she can still see bloody word; _rules_. Like Reid, she sleeps with a light on. But it’s not the absence of light that frightens her. Nothing as rational as that.

The dead haunt her. The dead and the words.

And this wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to her. And not to any of those girls.

When she discusses it with Gideon, he tells her that God tests us all.

She tells him that some things can’t be endured.

He won’t meet her eye but still disagrees.

It doesn’t matter, she supposes. She stopped caring about his opinion a long time ago and she cares even less about Hotch, who’d send her to slaughter. She stops fighting him, even when he tries to blame this all on her. It’s not her fault. She did nothing wrong, but her father’s grave still calls to collect her statement. She leaves her fingerprints on the headstone. Maybe her father finds her guilty too because he doesn’t answer her pleas.

The world looks different now. There’s always anger, obsession, rage, in the eyes of strangers, even when they smile. Secrets are hidden behind micro expressions and she sees them all, even in dark night clubs. When she looks in the mirror, she mourns the girl she used to be. Her world is all wrong. It’s filled with ugliness other people don’t see.

_This wasn’t supposed to happen._

She was supposed to make the world a better place. Safer. But all they did was teach her how to see the ugly sides of people. The obsession. The madness.

She loathes how pulling her gun is now muscle memory. And her cheeks hurt when she tries to smile.

Something ugly lurks in her own eyes too. It may not be obsession, or madness, but it’s as lethal as both of them would have been. Maybe it’s silent rage. The kind that makes her want to scratch Hotch’s eyes out when he looks at her, makes her want to choke Reid when he reduces those women to statistics.

They had names. And lives and lovers and hopes and dreams.

They’re so much more than just 20%.

In the end, that is why she pulls the trigger. Not because he may or may not have moved his hand towards his gun, or because he may or may not have smirked like he was getting away… but because this wasn’t supposed to happen, not to anyone. And if no-one else will stop it, she will.

Something perishes inside her when she pulls that trigger. She watches him die.

It doesn’t make her feel sick or justified.

It doesn’t make her feel anything.

 

That wasn’t supposed to happen either, but no-one gets what they deserve.

 

Years later, she will turn on the television and watch Hotch stumble away from a crime scene, hands covered in blood and the shadow of George Foyet still in his eyes. She will send him flowers and a card.

The card will read;

_here’s to winning_


	22. Still the boss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotch makes Reid wear a suit to work and Morgan won't stop laughing.

 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas time and a happy new year!

Thanks for all the support!

 

* * *

 

Reid is wearing a suit and Morgan won’t stop laughing. It’s not one of Reid’s cardigan and shirt combinations either, it’s a beautiful light grey suit with a pressed white shirt. The tie is dark green, kept in place by a silver tie bar. He’s wearing polished shoes instead of his usual sneakers.

‘Look how you clean up,’ Morgan leers from his seat on the plane. ‘ _Pretty boy_!’

‘I don’t know why Hotch is making me wear this,’ Reid murmurs as he falls into his seat. ‘Garcia said my fashion sense was improving over the last couple of months.’

‘ _Hotch_ made you wear this?’

‘Yeah. He called me this morning, said I needed to wear a suit to work today.’

Morgan kicks his feet up and grins, ‘well, I didn’t get that memo.’

‘It’s strange though,’ Reid says with a little frown. ‘My clothes never bothered him before.’

‘Go and ask him then, he’s right there.’

Reid looks over his shoulder. Hotch is talking to Rossi. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘You scared?’

‘That he’s going to fire me, yeah,’ Reid says, turning back to Morgan. ‘He wasn’t satisfied with my last two reports.’ That’s news to Morgan. Reid’s work is normally impeccable, with the rare exception of the time after Hankel, when nothing had mattered to the genius. ‘He made me write the expense reports.’

‘What?’

Reid nods absent-mindedly, looking out of the small window. Then he looks back, ‘it’s not just me, though. He made JJ write a tactical arrest plan. We never had to do that before.’

‘Hotch and I usually write those after each case,’ Morgan says with a frown, ‘here he comes now.’

The unit chief stops next to Reid’s chair, leafing through the current file. ‘Reid, I want you to run point on this case.’

‘ _What_?’

The gaze hardens as Hotch sets his jaw. ‘You’re running point today.’

‘Okay,’ Reid replies meekly.

‘Present the case,’ Hotch bites out before moving on.

 

It’s strange to present the case during the flight. Normally Hotch takes charge during the preparations. Reid has seen him do it a million times, but it’s still hard to duplicate. He rambles through the pictures, spending too much time on theoretical studies and statistics and he stutters when he assigns tasks to specific team members ending with ‘and, err, I want, err, Hotch? To, err, join JJ at morgue.’

‘What are the grounds for this role division?’ Hotch asks without looking up from the file.

‘It’s…’ Reid takes a deep breath, ‘the preliminary profile indicates an obsession based crime, which is why I want Morgan’s expertise with me at the police station where we will able to examine any evidence you bring to our attention from the field. Rossi and Blake will interview the family as they are both trained in interrogation and linguistics, anything the family can tell us, consciously or unconsciously by linguistics, will be helpful at this stage. Which leaves you and JJ to collect to autopsy report.’

‘What, we don’t have skills?’ JJ asks with a sly grin.

‘It’s a gruesome murder,’ Reid murmurs, ‘you’re good at compartmentalizing. And Hotch never blinks.’

 

During the case, Reid keeps glancing at Hotch for approval but the unit chief never asks him to explain his choices in front of the local police force. Behind closed doors, however, Hotch is all over him. From the way he talks to the way he walks, _everything_ is scrutinized.

It leaves Reid red in the face and weary, eyes down and shoulder slumped.

Hotch tells him to stand straight before re-joining the rest of the team.

 

The case is over and they’re on their way home. It’s still early in the morning, with sunlight streaming into the jet. Reid is sitting at the back, his jacket and tie thrown on another chair. The top three buttons off his shirt are open, revealing pale skin, and his sleeves are rolled up. The dirty blonde hair is a mess of curls.

Hotch sits down opposite him. ‘I got you coffee.’

Reid looks up from his paperwork. ‘Thanks.’

‘Everything okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘ _Reid_.’

‘It’s just….’ Reid sighs and pushes the paperwork away, looking Hotch straight in the eye. ‘It makes me feel vulnerable when you criticize me like this. You guys are part of my primary support system, when you turn against me, it makes me feel like I’m inadequate.’

‘I didn’t turn on you.’

‘You did. It’s… It’s fine if you make me run point and tell me to redo my files and… It’s just… Out there, in the field? I need to have you on my side.’

‘I never criticized you in front of the local police force.’

Reid seems to swallow words as he nods, ‘okay. Fine.’ He turns back to his work.

 

An hour before they land, Hotch brings him a sandwich.

Reid sighs, ‘are you apologizing?’

‘No. I don’t have anything to apologize for,’ the unit chief says sternly. ‘Do you know why I did it?’

‘Because you want us to be well-rounded agents. Years ago you brought hell down on Morgan right before you promoted him internally. And now it’s my turn to prove my worth.’

‘No.’

‘ _It is_ , though. I know I’ve let you down in the past, after Hankel, after Maeve, but… I can do it. I _can_ do this job.’

‘Reid,’ Hotch sits up straighter and leans forward, ‘I’m a control freak.’

‘So what? I should be grateful that you’re even giving me a chance?’

‘No, you should let me finish.’ Hotch watches as a blush creeps onto Reid’s face. ‘I need to know that, when I step back, you will be ready to take over. This isn’t about you being inadequate in any way. It’s about my obsessive need to get the job done, and done right.’

Reid’s eyes narrow, ‘step back?’

‘Jack still needs me. I missed Halloween this year. I’ve missed his birthday once. For a long time I thought this team couldn’t do it without me, until I realized that…’ He smiles a little, ‘I have the best team of the entire bureau. And it would be unfair to Jack to miss any more important dates when I have such a fantastic team to pick up my slack.’

Reid returns the smile, hesitantly, ‘so, you’re grooming us?’

‘I have been for a long time. Just because I passed all chances to climb the latter, doesn’t mean I’ll allow your careers to grind to a halt too. I’ve got four future unit chiefs working for me.’

‘I don’t think I’m unit chief material.’

‘You’re not a follower either. Not anymore. You’ve come a long way.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I know that I don’t say it often, but I am proud of you. And you have never let me down.’

Reid straightens a little, ‘that means a lot to me.’

Hotch nods and leans back in his seat again, thinking something over. Then he frowns, ‘did I really bring hell down on Morgan?’

‘You should have heard him in the bullpen,’ Reid mutters as he turns back to his papers. ‘Complained until he was blue in the face.’

‘Well, I had good reasons.’

‘You never share them, though,’ Reid answers and looks up when Hotch stays silent. ‘I just mean that sometimes you work in mysterious ways.’ He grins and shakes his head, ‘but we know you want the best for us.’

Hotch nods. ‘So, what are you working on?’

‘Expense report,’ Reid groans, ‘I’m over-budget by a trillion dollars.’

‘Are you?’ Hotch frowns and switches seats so he’s sitting next to Reid and looks over the forms, ‘oh, right, I can see why. You don’t need to include that,’ he points at one column, ‘we can write that off on another bill, here, let me show you how I usually do it.’

Reid grins at him, pushing his glasses higher up his nose, ‘you’re still the boss.’


	23. She knew, Reid.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid returns after Maeve's death.

* * *

 

 

Prompt fill for [Rivermoon1970](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivermoon1970/pseuds/Rivermoon1970) 

I finished it last night and will post it now, just to stop myself from rewriting it for a millionth time.

I hope you like it.

Thank you.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s early in the morning when the team gets an emergency recall. First, they are summoned by headquarters to come in, ungodly early on a Sunday, but they’re quickly rerouted by Garcia towards the plane.

It takes Hotch fifteen minutes to leave his home. Two are spend grovelling on the phone, apologizing to a sleepy Jessica who stumbles around her house in the dark, trying to find her keys and shoes, so she can come and get Jack.

He’s the last to arrive at the airstrip. His vehicle slides into a spot next to Morgan’s jeep and he stalks over towards the waiting plane. The engines are already going.

On the bottom of the staircase, a figure waits for him. In his hurry, he assumes that it’s JJ, ready to hand him the file, but when he gets closer he sees that it’s Reid.

‘What are you doing here?’ Hotch shouts over the engines.

‘I’m coming with you,’ Reid shouts back, gesturing with his phone. ‘Emergency recall.’

Hotch curses under his breath because even though Garcia knows not to call Reid, headquarters doesn’t. There isn’t time to argue, however. A child has gone missing. He grabs Reid’s shoulder and shoves him towards the stairs.

They stumble up together, finding a seat while the pilot closes the door and steers the plane towards the runway.

Morgan and JJ beam at Reid, but Rossi frowns at Hotch, lifting an eyebrow as if to say; _are you sure_? Or, _how did this happen_? Aaron makes sure to just miss his gaze.

Reid takes the seat opposite Hotch. They buckle up and are quiet while the plane takes off. It takes the pilot ten minutes to get them level and out of a spot of turbulence. It’s smooth sailing from here on, he says over the intercom.

‘How did you know to come here?’

Reid unbuckles his belt and shrugs, running a hand through his recently-cut hair. ‘I received the emergency recall text, it said a child had gone missing. You wouldn’t waste time by meeting at the office.’

‘It’s too soon, Reid, you should have stayed home. This is a mistake.’

Reid just looks at him before turning towards the window. ‘We’ll see.’

 

 

Reid works the case like he has always done. He seems unfazed, deflecting questions with practised ease and perfected skill, but always welcoming conversation and company. He laughs and talks, never drinks too much or sleeps too little. If he has nightmares, Hotch doesn’t hear him scream. Sometimes he seems too eager, pushing them to follow a lead even when they know it’s a dead-end but Hotch fears that he might be looking for cracks which aren’t there.

 

 

Another child goes missing and Reid finally breaks.

When it happens, everyone seems to breathe a sigh of relief because _this is normal_. Reid throws books and glasses, letting the glass shatter against the walls. He screams and cries and begs and tries to bribe a God he never believed in before.

It’s heartbreaking, but this is how people grieve. This is by the books.

And everyone seems to feel better for it.

Except for Reid, who washes the tears away in the bathroom and pulls a face just when Hotch walks in. They look at each other via the mirror. Too late, Reid remembers to hunch his shoulder, school his face into one of profound sadness as he’d done minutes ago when everyone could see.

He brushes past his unit chief with an ‘excuse me’. And he forgets to let his voice break over the words.

Hotch watches him go. Just before the doors, Reid magic’s grief back into his posture. Just so everyone thinks that he is mourning as he should; by the book, and to make others feel better.

 

 

They solve the case, but not in time. The children die.

Reid doesn’t blink when they hear the news. Doesn’t swear like Rossi, doesn’t smack his hands against the walls like Morgan, doesn’t tear up like JJ.

Like Hotch, he doesn’t blink.

 

 

On the way home, JJ, Rossi and Morgan sleep. The young mother is curled up next to Rossi, leaning against him for warmth and comfort. They had been holding hands, but now her hand has fallen open, their fingers barely touching. Morgan is in the seat opposite them. He sleeps on his side, his back towards his friends so he can hide his face in the leather.

Hotch sits at the front, feet on the seat opposite him, shoes kicked under another chair. The tie and jacket are thrown over the back of an empty seat. The top buttons of his shirt are open, revealing the beginnings of the Reapers scars. Ragged-edges, now a dull pink instead of flaming red.

He stares out of the window, thinking about the case. Always thinking how they could have been faster, better, smarter, but nothing comes to mind. They did everything right, but the children still died. They couldn’t have prevented this, he knows, but it doesn’t make him feel better.

Reid steps out of the bathroom and walks over, gingerly sitting down next to his unit chief. He refuses to meet Hotch’s eyes, brushing strands of dark-blond hair out of his eyes with shaking hands. He scratches at his neck, leaving angry marks on pale skin, then moves to rub at his elbow, where his scars are. Only then does Reid seem to realize that he’s fidgeting. He stills and stares out of the window.

Hotch pretends not to notice any of it.

‘Maybe you were right,’ Reid says after a long time. ‘Maybe this was a mistake.’

‘If you need more time…’

‘I don’t need _time_ ,’ Reid snaps back. He glances at his friends, who remain asleep and then looks at Hotch. ‘I don’t need time,’ he repeats, quieter now.

‘What do you need, then?’

‘I need,’ Reid starts but then falters, hands balling into a fist and then relaxing again, over and over. ‘I need everything to be normal. And for everyone to stop saying that they’re _sorry_.’ His voice nearly breaks over the last word, but he presses his lips into a thin line and clenches his teeth. There are tears in his eyes, but he refuses to let them fall.

Hotch watches silently. He knows what it’s like to have whispers follow you through hallways. To have people who you’d never met before stop you, shaking your hand while saying that they’re so sorry. And all he could think was; _how the hell do you know_? _Does everyone know? Why are they all looking at me like that?_

‘What do they know, right?’ Reid bites out. ‘ _Nothing_. They’re all just waiting, watching, just hoping that you’ll lose it. Did you hear about that geek of the BAU? Cried like a baby over his girlfriend. Ha ha.’ Reid bites on the knuckle of his right hand, ‘blitz attackers,’ he murmurs. ‘All of them.’

 _Anger_ , Hotch thinks. The second stage. A long way still to the fifth stage of acceptance.

‘I thought this would help,’ Reid says, eyeing his unit chief. ‘That this case would take my mind of it, of _her_ , but it didn’t. It just made it worse, we couldn’t even save those children. What’s the point if we can’t save them? Gideon was right. It’s not worth it, any of it.’

Hotch shifts in his seat, turns his body more towards his friend, and thinks about how jaded one must be before the disappearance of a child serves as a mere distraction.

‘I went to her funeral. Nobody knew who I was.’

‘We could have gone with you.’

‘It wouldn’t have changed anything.’

It still pains Hotch to realize that Reid has always been like this. On his own. No matter how hard Morgan pushes, or how long JJ pleads, they’re always outsiders to his world.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Hotch admits.

Reid flinches at the words. His hands shake. The tears in his eyes slowly drip down his cheeks, leaving silvery tracks in their wake. He still looks angry, with his eyes narrowed and a frown marring his forehead, but when he looks at Hotch, he also looks young and helpless. ‘It’s not fair,’ he says.

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Why her?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why does it feel like this? Like… like _nothing_. I go to work and I eat and shower and shave and _nothing matters_.’

Hotch doesn’t say anything.

‘How long?’ Reid asks. ‘How long does this last? This numbness.’

Forever, Hotch thinks but he just shakes his head. ‘It’ll get easier.’

‘It wasn’t even… It’s not _supposed_ to hurt this much. You and Haley, you were together for _years_. We only spoke on the phone, but…’

‘That doesn’t matter, Spencer,’ Hotch says softly. ‘You loved her. And she loved you.’

‘None of that mattered in the end anyway,’ Reid spits back, angry tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘And it only makes it worse! It’s _not fair_.’ His voice breaks on the words. His shoulders start to shake as he cries. ‘She deserved so much more than this. I could have… I should have done something to…’

‘There was nothing you could have done. You tried.’

‘I told her I didn’t love her,’ Reid sobs as he leans forward, placing his hands in his hair. ‘I didn’t even get the chance to tell her… To tell her how I really felt.’

‘She knew, Reid.’

‘I couldn’t even say goodbye!’

Hotch watches the young man cry, unsure of what to say or do. Of course he _understands_ , but Rossi was right; he grieves privately. He thinks about all those nights that he’d sat on the edge of his bed, too afraid to go to sleep. The times he’d decided to spend the night in his office when Jack was at a sleep-over just so he wouldn’t have to face that empty house. All those times he’d told everyone he was _fine_.

And he is, now. He’d appreciated how everyone on the team had kept their distance while he was mourning. How they would leave cups of tea and coffee on his desk, but never push him to talk. How they would walk beside him during one of his bad moods, but never offer a hug or comforting touch. How JJ would wait with offering to take Jack for the weekend until he asked and how Morgan hooked him up with a new apartment only after he’d asked his subordinated whether he knew about a place.

He is a private person and he loves his team for protecting that even when it pained them to have to stand on the side-lines and wait to be called upon.

But Reid… Reid is only reserved towards strangers. He likes to talk to his friends, to share his ideas and passions, and slowly but surely, he trusts them with his fears too.

And now Reid has come to him, bearing fear and grief and pain, and Hotch knows that he deserves so much more than stoic silence, but isn’t sure how to offer more. He doesn’t know what to say to make this better, there’s nothing he _can_ say, he knows. Nothing will ever make this right.

And still he has to try. Because Reid deserves his attempts, feeble as they are.

‘Shh,’ Hotch hushes as he places a warm hand on Reid’s neck and pulls him close. ‘It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.’ He lets Reid burry his face in his neck, draping his arm over shaking shoulders. ‘I’ve got you,’ he murmurs into the brown hair. ‘Shh, ssh.’

Reid’s fingers dig into his back and side, desperately holding on. He cries and cries and cries, until he runs out of breath and energy.

‘I’ve got you,’ Hotch says soothingly, running a hand through the brown hair. ‘I understand.’

Reid’s body shocks with grief, heartbreaking cries which make him sound like he’s drowning in his own tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ he cries, nails digging into Hotch’s back. ‘I’m so sorry…. I tried. I, I…. I _tried_ , Aaron.’

‘I know you did. We all did. I’m so sorry, Spencer.’ He kisses the brown hair, desperate to make this better. ‘It’ll be okay. Ssh. Breathe, just breathe.’

Reid’s fingers contract against his sides and he breathes deeply in an effort to regain control over his emotions.

It takes him a couple of minutes, during which he leans against Hotch, hiding his face in the crook of his neck. When the tears are all gone, he sits up again, face flushed and hair a mess from where Hotch had ran his hand through it.

‘I’m sorry,’ Reid murmurs, looking anywhere but at his unit chief.

‘Don’t apologize.’ Reid winces a little which makes Hotch want to slap himself because he didn’t mean to sound so harsh. He clears his throat and tries again. ‘You have nothing to be sorry about. Do you want me to get you some water?’

‘Yeah, sure. Thanks.’

Hotch gets up and grabs a bottle of water from the small kitchen. He passes JJ, who pretends to be asleep. When he returns, Reid has shrugged out of his cardigan and has smoothed his hair back. He gives a hesitant smile, ‘thanks.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Hotch sits down beside him again.

There are a few of moments of silence while Reid takes a couple of sips. Then he glances at Hotch. ‘I…’ he starts again. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘Didn’t mean what?’

‘That Gideon was right. I mean… I thought I did, but…. He’s wrong. I know he is.’ Reid dares to look Hotch in the eye again. ‘We do make a difference. Every day, every time we try to save them. Sometimes… sometimes that’s enough. That you tried. I believe that.’ He smiles. ‘We make a difference.’

Hotch nods, ‘I like to think so too.’

 

And while Reid might mean out there, in the field, Hotch means right here, in each other’s lives.

 


	24. Triggers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There doesn’t even have to be an obvious reason. Just a trigger. And their daily lives are riddled with them.

* * *

 

 

Of course, they’re a family. The time away from the unfamiliar police departments is spend in hotel rooms, lounging on each other’s beds while trading stories about homes and histories or in the jet which starts to feel more like their second home with every case. The roads back home are usually filled with laughter or quiet contentment, but that doesn’t mean that there are never any conflicts. Cracks disappear behind masks of professionalism until they can tear them off the moment the doors of the plane close. And then they’re at each other’s throats in an instance. Vicious attacks on personality traits and petty teasing over strange habits happen as often as any laughing fit.

There doesn’t even have to be an obvious reason. Just a trigger. And their daily lives are riddled with them.

 

Morgen sends JJ back to the police station just before a raid. He has his reasons, or so he claims, but JJ calls him a chauvinistic pig as soon as the doors close anyway. She won’t listen to his explanation, refuses to hear why he needed _her_ to talk to the victims instead of sending back Emily, Reid or even Hotch. Instead, she just yells and screams at him, until she pushes too far and he starts to yell back.

 

Reid quietly fumes over Rossi’s back-handed remark about how the young doctor is exactly like a computer. He only explodes when Emily asks him a simple question. He rants and snaps until Emily can only blink back in stunned silence. Then Reid narrows his eyes and calls them all _ignorant_. And it sounds like it’s the most hurtful thing he could think of.

 

Hotch hides behind professionalism and manners when things get hot. He chides and glares until he feels like he has control over his team again, too afraid to let the reigns go or let them get too close. The team cowers, now so seasoned that they know which battles to pick with their unit chief, which leaves Hotch feeling angry without a real target. When Garcia is unfortunate enough to call in to flirt with Morgan, he gives her hell.

 

Garcia hurts whenever they’re hurting and only bares her teeth when they forget that it’s _supposed_ to hurt. Whenever Hotch breezes past her, head already buried in the next file and he forgets to tell her that; yes, they did catch him and he’s going away for life, well done, case closed. Whenever Morgan laughs and says, yeah, yeah, got him, no that last victim didn’t make it by the way, what about lunch? Whenever Reid just hands her a table of numbers and gets red-faced when she asks for names instead.

 

It’s all too easy, they suppose. They’re profilers _and_ they’re family. They know where to push to make it _hurt_.

 

Reid, reciting statistics about drug-users and someone mumbling ‘ _yeah, you would know_ ’ under their breaths.

Morgan not wanting to share a room with one of the guys and someone making a comment about feeling _too vulnerable_ to sleep.

JJ nursing a black eye and someone calling her _such a precious little thing_.

Hotch leading his team with an iron fist and catching whispers about _herding them into an early grave_ , like he’d almost done with Elle.

Rossi trying to be helpful and someone snapping back that _the Old Days are dead_ and buried.

Garcia, offering a teasing smile, gets snapped at and ordered to _be_ _serious for once in your life_.

Emily, always so hesitant about professional and personal boundaries, hears others snicker about her _behind her back_.

Gideon, always so impulsive and fiery, rushes toward another scene just as someone mimics an explosion with their hands and a whispered ‘ _Boom_!’

Seaver, on her training, hears someone laugh and ask why they reckon Seaver’s so good at figuring out how to get a lifeless body over a high wall. _Her dad had that one all figured out, huh._

Blake rounds a corner and catches someone say ‘ _yeah, I’d be moving across the country if I were her husband too.’_

 

Still, that doesn’t mean they don’t know how to make it _better_ , too.

 

Garcia, who makes sure that there are cars waiting to take them home at the end of a horrid case.

Hotch, who is suddenly very vague about what time, no what _day_ , they are supposed to be back at the office for the next case.

JJ, who can charm the press into paying attention, just as easily as she can scare them off.

Emily, who never pries but always knows what to say to make it all hurt a little less.

Morgan, who can be both hard muscle and soft hugs and always knows which anyone needs at any given time.

Rossi, who sees everything but is wise enough to keep his mouth shut on some occasions.

Seaver, who isn’t afraid to remind all of them of the person they, too, used to be.

Reid, who remembers everything, but sometimes chooses to forget.

 

They like to think that they’re always there for each other, but they’re not perfect. Sometimes the urge to lash out because too great, too easy. Their strength doesn’t come from the supposedly limited amount of fights, because there are plenty behind closed doors.

It comes from the times they make up.

Which is often.

(always)


	25. Making deals.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotch made a deal, once. And several years later, he has to pay to the price.

 

* * *

 

 

‘I can’t leave yet.’

The dying sunlight paints their shadows on the airstrip, dark and looming, like poppets whose strings are attached to boots and heels. Far in the distance, Boston settles down for a night free of terror. Hopefully. The latest monster has been caught, but they all know what’s hiding in the shadowy corners of human minds. They’ll be back, far sooner than they would like.

JJ, who was leading them home, now turns around, ‘what?’

Hotch has stopped walking. His go-bag is resting on the hot asphalt beside his feet. The sunglasses hide most of his expression and they glint when he turns to look at the setting sun. ‘I can’t leave yet,’ he repeats. ‘I’m sorry. You’ll have to go without me.’

‘Is it something about the case?’ Morgan asks, hands in his pockets and now wobbling on the balls of his feet. ‘We closed it, man. We got him.’

‘I know. It’s not that.’

Rossi looks at Morgan and JJ first, before turning to his friend, ‘then what is it?’

Hotch squares his shoulder while his team slowly starts to round on him. ‘I... Years ago, I… I made a deal.’

The words nearly makes Reid’s stomach turn. His mind instantly draws up passages from old police reports, newspaper clips, paragraphs from non-fiction books…

_If you stop hunting me, I’ll stop hunting them_.

The deal with the devil.

‘No,’ Hotch shakes his head as he sees the horrified stares, a hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. ‘No, it’s… It wasn’t like that. The story about the deal with Shaunessy, the messages in the paper, the note, it got out. It would have ruined the reputation of the entire police department. If you can’t trust the police, who can you trust? There would have been fear. Panic in the streets. That was what the Reaper wanted.’

JJ frowns, ‘but the story was never released.’

‘No.’ Hotch removes his sunglasses. He squints slightly for a moment as he regards his team. ‘The reporter who wrote the book on the first reaper cases…’

‘Roy Colson,’ Reid recalls automatically.

‘Yeah, he had the scoop. The reaper had told him about the deal he’d made with the police. Roy brought it to me for evidence but he could still run the story, of course. I couldn’t let that happen. So I offered him a deal. His silence for full access to the BAU team.’

There’s a heavy silence in which Reid nervously glances at the rest of his team members, unsure of what to do, and Morgan crosses his arms in front of his chest defensively. ‘You sold us out?’ he asks, his voice a mingle of confusion and hints of anger and betrayal. ‘What, you thought we’d like to have a nosy reporter around, snooping through our stuff, trying to get under our skin for more information? Does that sound like something we needed at the time?’

‘It was before…’ Hotch looks away again. ‘I thought it would be just like our recruitment sessions. A lecture on how we work, what we do. The deal was that he would get the exclusive once we’d caught him.’

‘But he got away,’ Rossi says softly. ‘So you didn’t have to honor your agreement until…’

Hotch nods. He looks far older than he is, even in the flattering light of the sun. For a moment he looks down at his right hand, where the ring would have caught the rays in a blink of gold, but there’s just bare skin. Another scar, as well hidden behind stoic demeanour as his chest is behind designer shirts. ‘I called Roy this morning. You don’t have to come.’ He looks at Morgan, ‘he will have to make due with just my input. I reckon it’ll make quite the story.’

JJ flinches and Reid shivers.

Rossi just tilts his chin higher in defiance. ‘You don’t have to, Aaron. You don’t owe him anything.’

‘I made a deal and we’ve reaped the benefits from it during the case,’ Hotch counters. ‘Now I’ve got to pay the price. No,’ he shakes his head when Rossi wants to reply. ‘I want this over with.’

The team hesitates for a moment. Shifting feet and darting eyes, no-one is sure what to say or do.

They understand that this is the last physical tie to Boston. And Boston is always dark and filled with horror in their minds. The ties need to be severed in order to move forward, to not open the newspaper and fear the day that the note will be a new headline. That the wrong deal will be exposed. That the Reaper can still claim an entire police department as his latest victim, post-mortem.

But they also means that scars will have to be ripped open again. Memories about shattered glass in shoulders, missing badges, final phone-calls.

Reid pushes his sunglasses higher up his nose, turns and walks away. When he passes Hotch, he gives him a faint smile, ‘let’s go then.’ The smile turns cheeky when Hotch frowns. ‘That case lasted for over a year. The file is so big, it made Penelope’s computers groan under the strain of processing. You’d need an eidetic memory to know all the details. And reporters are nothing, if not focussed on the details.’

‘The devil was in them, after all,’ Rossi nods as he follows the doctor. ‘And I can offer personal insight, you know? Character. Every story needs a good side-kick.’

Morgan smirks at his friend, but still follows them. ‘I’m just here for entertainment then?’

‘You can demonstrate how you kicked down the door,’ Reid offers with a grin.

‘That’s not all I do, pretty boy!’

Their friendly bickering fades as they head back towards the hotel. Hotch grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder. The sunglasses slide back into place.

‘You realise that this won’t be the end of it, right?’

Hotch looks at JJ, who’s biting her lower lip. His face hardens. ‘How could there ever be an end to this?’ He asks.

His son grows up without a mother because of _this_.

His house never feels safe enough because of _this_.

Scotch doesn’t taste the same because of this.

_He_ is not the same, because of this. No-one he knows, is.

This will hurt forever.

‘We’re all here for you,’ JJ offers with a soft voice as they start to follow the others.

‘I know.’ After a short while, he glances at her. ‘I’m glad you’re coming.’

‘Yeah,’ she flickers her hair back and grins, ‘I aint afraid of no reporter.’


	26. Hero-complex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes JJ wishes she'd never taken the classes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been ages, I know, sorry!  
> Had a long train ride today so wrote you all a little something on the fly. Hope you guys like it!

 

* * *

 

 

‘I wish I’d never taken the classes.’

Morgan catches the words only because he’d been watching JJ’s face, studying it, trying to figure out what’s wrong. With one hand, he pushes the headphones off his ears. An old R&B song leaks into the background noises of the plane; Hotch talking on the phone to someone, Rossi playing chess with Reid, the roaring engines.

‘Why’s that?’ he asks. The music sounds all wrong, tiny, in a way, but he still taps his fingers to the far-away beat.

‘We just leave them.’ JJ is staring out of the window, but the bright eyes are unfocussed. She probably isn’t looking out over perfect white clouds and beautiful sky. Instead, Morgan can see the crime scenes in her irises, just like he can see the survivors in the way she bites her fingernails. ‘We solve the case, file the paperwork and we just _go_. All those families. They’ve had people violently torn out of their middles and we shake hands and leave, calling it a job well done while they pick out tombstones’

‘They’ve got people helping them. Counseling,’ Morgan shifts uncomfortably at the word, ‘the local force will look after them.’ He isn’t sure what to say, really. He can’t deny that he thinks they did well, even though they lost four people to the unsub. It wasn’t their fault, they were only called after the third, as per protocol, but still, they lost the fourth too. The fact that they were in the town doesn’t make it their fault, he thinks. Or any less spectacular how they pieced the evidence together just in time to save the fifth.

‘Doesn’t it bother you?’ 

‘What?’

‘That we just up and leave?’

Morgan sighs, his head cocking to the side slightly, ‘no. Like I said, they’ve got people looking after them. Probably more than they can bear, at the moment.’

‘I used to be that link between you guys and the families. It wasn’t just the press, you know. I did it for the ones left behind, so they had someone who could explain everything to them, keep them updated and informed.’ She shakes her head, ‘did you know the family of the last victim didn’t even know his body was found until two days after we got the bastard?’

‘There hadn’t been a formal ID,’ Morgan says, sticking up for the local police force. ‘And with his face like that, they had to wait for the DNA samples. Lab rushed it, but it still takes time.’

‘We knew it was him.’

‘We _thought_ it was him because he fitted the victim-profile and Garcia picked him off of CCTV images nearby. We couldn’t be sure.’

JJ shakes her head, ‘we knew.’

‘We were sure for 99%,’ Morgan allows. ‘But what if it was the 1% chance, huh? What if we’d told them that their boy had died while he was still alive? What if we’d been wrong?’

‘Then their son would have been still alive,’ JJ says.

‘And they’d spend 48 hours in every parent’s worst nightmare.’

‘But their son would have been alive.’

Morgan lifts an eyebrow, ‘what if someone came to your house and told you Henry was-‘

‘Don’t you dare use him as an example,’ JJ cuts in, eyes flashing as they focus on her friend.

‘Okay,’ Morgan say, hands raised in silent surrender. ‘Sorry.’

‘You think I’m being ridiculous.’

‘No.’ He rests his head back, dark eyes narrowing slightly. ‘I just don’t know what you want me to say. That you’re right and shouldn’t have taken the classes? That you should go back to charming the press and keeping the local forces from jumping at our throats during our cases?’

‘That I should _help the families_ ,’ JJ grinds out.

‘You are. We got the son of a bitch who murdered their kids and siblings. Do you think a follow-up phone call from you is going to make the loss any more bearable? That they need to hold your hand while grieving? You didn’t know those kids. You don’t know them.’ Morgan rubs at his face. ‘Leave that to people who’re trained to do it. And leave it to the ones who love them. We up and leave, yeah, but only to do the same damn thing the next day, for other families.’

 JJ presses her lips together and stays silent.

‘Hero-complex,’ Morgan says. ‘You can’t save them all and you can’t _help_ them all. That’s the job. If you can’t deal with that, you need to go back to being a liaison, or back to Washington, I don’t care. Don’t get me wrong here, you were the best liaison of the whole bureau, but Hotch can talk circles around reporters all day long and Garcia is a support network and information-distributor all in one phone call. We got it covered.’

JJ nods, ‘I know, it just _feels_ wrong.’

Morgan shrugs.

‘It doesn’t bother you?’ his friend asks, astounded. ‘At all?’

‘That I got the unsub and locked him up for life? No. Look,’ he sighs as JJ rolls her eyes. ‘I understand, okay? You like being the person people turn to, but that’s still who you are. It’s just not the victim’s families anymore, okay? It’s _us_. When you were a liaison? You didn’t… you didn’t always understand, all right? I mean, you _knew_ , but it’s different when you’re right there with us, all the way.’ He sinks deeper into the chair, ‘it’s better.’

‘Better?’

Morgan grins, ‘come on now, look at yourself ten years ago and look at you now. It’s not just experience, you know, it’s a whole,’ he waves at JJ, ‘ _change_. And in the field? I’d rather have my Pennsylvania petite by my side than some paper pusher.’

JJ laughs softly at that, ‘yeah, all right.’

Silence stretches between them. The blonde pushes her hair behind her ear and stares out of the window while Morgan scratches at his ear and fiddles with his headphones.

‘It’s just-‘ JJ starts but Morgan leans forward and cuts in; ‘call Garcia. If you want to know how they are, what’s going on, she’ll know, okay? She’s taking care of all of that. But you should trust us to do our job, even it was yours first.’

‘I’m not _doubting_ -‘

‘Sounds like it,’ Morgan shrugs. ‘But hey, do your thing. Make the call.’

It almost sounds like a challenge.

He puts his headphones back on and closes his eyes, signaling that their conversation is over.

              

JJ watches as he relaxes into the smooth R&B music.

And doesn’t make the call.


	27. Old friends and perfect cases

 

* * *

 

 

He sees her at the airport.

Seaver, who doesn’t know her, is reading one of her textbooks, a highlighter between her lips and a pen in her right hand. She scribbles in the margins of the book, something which always makes Reid shake his head in despair. Every so often she will look up at Hotch, who is sitting next to her. She’ll take the highlighter from her mouth, starts and then stops, swallowing her words before turning back to the book.

It’s Hotch who spots her. She’s sitting seven rows over, picking at a sandwich a colleague just bought her. She pushes a strand of brown hair behind her ear. It’s much lighter than the last time they saw each other but he would recognize her anywhere.

‘I’ll be right back,’ he tells Seaver.

She nods and flips a page. She’s been quiet all day, probably still shaken up from their visit to the prison earlier. Maybe JJ was right. Maybe she wasn’t ready, but Hotch had stated that if she wanted to be a member of the team, she’d have to carry the same workload as the others. He regrets that now. Regretted it the moment the men in the prison had roared as they walked past.

‘Is this seat taken?’

Elle looks up. And shakes her head.

Hotch sits down.

‘Let me guess,’ the former profiler says. ‘Hermann is about to be executed.’

‘Two days from now. We took his final interview.’

‘Anything useful?’

‘He claims to be send by God.’

‘Aren’t we all?’

They stay silent for a long while. Then Elle shifts in her seat so she can face him properly. ‘I’m sorry about Hailey.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I sent you flowers.’

‘They were beautiful. Thank you.’

She huffs out a breath of near-laughter, rolls her eyes and shifts back so she’s looking at the other people in the waiting area. ‘You didn’t even see them.’

Hotch turns in his seat this time, ‘I thought the poem was good. She would have liked it.’

Elle nods. ‘I read about it in the papers.’

‘You must think I’m a hypocrite.’

‘Are you still looking for an admission of guilt?’

‘No,’ Hotch says.

‘Good. I don’t think you’re a hypocrite, then. Not at all. Anyone would have done the same thing in your case.’

‘But not in yours.’ He can’t help it. The words are gone before he can even think about taking them back, and it’s too late now.

Elle meets his eye. ‘No,’ she says flatly. ‘Not in mine.’ Her flight is called. ‘Walk me to the terminal?’

 

They walk together, slowly, trying to make it last. He tells her about Jack. About Reid, Morgan, JJ, Gideon leaving. She’s envious that they’re working with Rossi but doesn’t mind not having to suffer through budget cuts.

She tells him about her new colleagues, how they represent Reid, Morgan. They even have their own JJ from before she took the classes.

‘This is me,’ she nods at a queue forming. ‘It was good seeing you, Aaron.’

‘It was.’

‘Well, bye, then.’

‘Good bye, Elle.’ He turns and walks away.

‘Hotch!’ She calls out. He turns. ‘Look after them.’

He waits for a biting comment about how he failed her but it never leaves her lips.

Maybe it’s enough that he’s expecting it.

 

When he returns, Seaver offers him a smile. She’s still nervous around him, intimidated by rank and reputation.

He smiles back.

‘Old friend?’ she asks.

‘Something like that.’ He looks away, then back again, forcing himself to admit his own mistakes. ‘I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have brought you.’

She frowns a little, ‘oh. I thought I did all right. I’m sorry if I let you down.’

The words cut deeper than she’ll ever know but he doesn’t flinch. ‘No,’ he says, sounding too harsh and distant. ‘That’s not what I mean. You did extremely well under the circumstances. I mean that I shouldn’t have put you in that position.’

‘Okay.’ She says but she sounds unsure. Her gaze drifts back to her book.

‘What are you working on?’

She hesitates. Closes her book.

‘Show me.’ Again, his tone is all wrong.

‘I have to analyze a closed case,’ she says. ‘Garcia gave me the Kensington case.’

‘She didn’t clear that with me.’

‘I’m sorry, I just asked and she said it was a good one. I mean –‘

‘It was,’ Hotch cuts in before she can apologize. ‘One of our best. It was a child abduction case. We found the little girl in time. The unsub was caught. He’s serving a life sentence. What’s there to analyze?’

She’s getting a bit flustered now, ‘you followed protocol and, I don’t know, I just thought…’

‘We followed protocol and it worked. Are you going to describe the protocol? Recite it? That doesn’t require any skill save reading. How can you judge this to be anything but a perfect case?’

‘You think I should pick a case that ended badly?’

He looks away, ‘no. I’ll give you authorization for a different case, Garcia will have the paperwork ready for you by Monday. Do your analysis, I expect it to be on my desk by Friday. Be sure to include team interviews to build your case this time. Why haven’t you requested them before?’

‘I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.’

‘You don’t. They’ll make time.’ He gets up and grabs his bag, ‘come on, we’re boarding.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The grip on his bag tightens. He sets his jaw. ‘What are you going to learn from a perfect case? Nothing. That protocol works, maybe, but we’ve got a thousand cases to disprove that theory. I want you to dig and find the mistakes. We’re not perfect. We’ve made mistakes. And I want you to learn from them so you won’t make them in the future.’

‘Okay,’ she gets up slowly. ‘Which case?’

 _Buford,_ he thinks _. Georgia. Frank. Arson. The pig farm. Son of Sam, the second. Zugzwang. The company. Doyle. The queen of diamonds. Zodiac._

_The fisher king._

_Boston._

‘I’ll have to think about that.’

There are too many to choose from. How she managed to find the only perfect case in their portfolio, he’ll never understand.

‘I’ll let you know on Monday,’ he says as they walk to their terminal. ‘How are you getting on with the classes? Do you need help? I saw you were revising obsessive disorders.’

‘Yeah,’ Seaver pushes her blonde hair behind one ear, ‘I’ve got a test on Wednesday night.’

‘Well,’ Hotch gives her a wry smile, ‘I might not be an expert like Morgan, but I’m sure I can help you out. If you want, of course. We’ve got a few hours to kill anyway.’

She smiles back, ‘that would be great! I mean, I can do it on my own, it’s just revision and I’m sure you’re busy with…’

‘Give me the seven primary forms of CBT therapy used to treat OCD.’

‘My book only mentioned five!’

Hotch looks at her, ‘then give me five and I’ll teach you two more.’

Seaver stops for a second and then follows him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘Yes, sir.’


End file.
